Bebo Norman was a struggler, something he did not try to hide, and probably something that his collaborator Jason Ingram could also say. These guys didn’t feel abandoned, because they did cry out for help in this 2006 song “I Will Lift My Eyes”, much as an ancient songwriter did when he felt like he needed ‘help’ from the ‘Maker of heaven and earth’. Depression and loneliness can manifest itself in a bowed head, but that wasn’t Bebo’s nor Jason’s posture. This fellow named Bebo from Columbus, Georgia (see here the seal of Columbus, Georgia, where Bebo [formally known as Jeffrey] was likely living when the song was composed) did what his ancestor-songwriter brethren did long ago. Trust and authenticity are two things that contemporary songwriters and the psalmists have both practiced, knowing that it is useless to try masking one’s feelings, but understanding that wallowing in despair is also a hollow exercise. So, make music instead, and make your heart meet His for healing. It’s called therapy.
Bebo suddenly retired from the public spotlight of musical touring in 2013, explaining in an interview some four years later (2017) that a lot of what he’d written, especially during his 20-something years had arisen from challenging circumstances he’d faced personally. Desolation, loneliness, and tension (not further detailed) had dominated his life, Bebo confessed. So, when ‘I Will Lift…’ was released in 2006, when Bebo was 33 years old, we can deduce from what he wrote that Bebo was still managing some of those same feelings that had been present when he launched his musical endeavors over a decade earlier. In the first line that he and Jason penned, Bebo was ‘cry(ing) out’, and then in many other words he asked God to be near. Bebo and Jason echo what the ancient and anonymous songwriter said in Psalm 121 – this song’s title – so that it seems as if these 21st Century musicians were taking a page from that text, one that was much more uplifting than what Bebo and Jason had to say. The psalmist expresses little desolation in his four couplets (two-verse sections, in Psalm 121’s eight verses), but consistently tells the Creator that he trusts him, that he knows He ‘watches over’ His people. That particular phrase is in Psalm 121 five times (vv. 3,4,5,7,8), something that Bebo and Jason must have implicitly understood and that coaxed their apparent use of the psalm’s opening words for this 21st Century song. They could also have been reading Psalm 123 (a song of ascent, like Psalm 121), which begins as Psalm 121 does, with their own chosen song title; likewise, Isaiah’s prophecy (40:26 and 51:6) also urges God-followers to ‘lift…eyes’ to see the heavens He made. So, one can imagine, though Bebo and Jason do not explicitly confirm this, that these psalms and prophetic scriptures moved their own hands when they wrote in 2006. Especially Psalm 121, since it has the worshipper gazing at ‘mountains’, was most likely their particular focus when they see ‘the mountains’ in their own lyrics. It draws attention to God as Creator, a facet of Him that Bebo and Jason further acknowledged with ‘the oceans raging wild’, lauding the One who ‘fashioned the earth’. They were evidently desperate, with many repetitions of ‘fear’, ‘hurt’, ‘doubt’, and of ‘need(ing) you now’ spread throughout his own poetry. But, there’s also God there, in His ‘love’, ‘kindness’, and ‘mercy’, acting as the eternal ‘calmer’ and ‘healer’.
Perhaps Bebo and Jason articulate this trust of God most succinctly when they address Him as ‘God My God’, an expression that is used three times. Four other times they call out to ‘God’. Is there any other name that says it better, especially when you feel beaten and desperate, and yet feel you can turn to the Eternal Resolver? There are many names for this Eternal Being, the One who made it all ‘in the beginning’, as your bible and mine say. That is at the very heart of why Bebo, Jason, and others like them – that’s all of us, really – call out to Him, ultimately. He’s the one who initiated life and everything that revolves around us, literally. When something feels out of my control, it only makes sense to go talk to the One who knows all about it. The mountains are there to majestically suggest He’s still there for you and me.
Read about the primary composer here: Bebo Norman - Wikipedia
Read about the 2nd composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Ingram
See information on the image here: File:Original Columbus GA seal.png - Wikimedia Commons …This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1930, and if not then due to lack of notice or renewal. See this page for further explanation.
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