Never Once – Matt Redman, Jason Ingram, Tim Wanstall

Matt Redman was at a point where events made him reflect. He had two friends, Jason Ingram and Tim Wanstall, with whom he must have been sharing and identifying later. It was a ‘nutshell’ moment, as he recalled picking up his guitar and letting his memories pour out in a rather lonesome place, a big empty spot, both emotionally and physically. Some of us might have run to a different situation, hurrying to escape the sense of isolation. But that’s where Redman paused. He knew he was in fact not alone, and that “Never Once” had God let him down.

Matt Redman tells the story in his own words (see link below), so you the reader don’t need me to reveal it to you. Redman is very open, saying it was a time when he and his family were returning to England after living in Atlanta, Georgia for some time. It was the summer of 2010, and the departure was culminating. If you’ve ever moved, leaving friends and an uplifting experience, then you’ve felt the way the Redmans must have that day. They probably had a “For Sale” sign (see the picture) displayed, or something else posted on the property to let others know they were leaving, vacating the premises. They were just a little sad, he hints, to say ‘so long’, with the emptiness of their house magnifying the moment for Matt. He still had his guitar, so he began to reminisce, giving birth to the song that his friends Jason and Tim must have helped him crystallize later on. Redman says in that moment he appreciated that God was faithful to him even as a child of seven years old, decades earlier. God had not ‘vacated the premises’. His faithfulness is one divine characteristic that Redman says he tends to reflect on in his music-making most. Perhaps that’s because it feels so personal for him. He doesn’t provide details, but Redman admits his childhood might be described as difficult.  His words describe ups and downs, not unlike what all of us experience, times in which he hopes believers don’t discard God because of confusion or ‘clouds over you’.   There’s a ‘thread of God’s faithfulness’ that Redman has identified, and he hopes that it’s ‘burning deep inside’ the believer.  

Remember and trust. That’s all Redman and his friends ask of those who sing “Never Once”. If you’re still struggling, Redman doesn’t seem to think that discredits his song’s message. It might be a ‘battleground’ with ‘scars and struggles’, but don’t think He’s abandoned you. Jesus must have felt it too, in the garden and several hours later, suspended between here and there. Most of my ‘desert’ moments don’t come close to the gravity of Jesus’ wasteland experience. If He can endure the desertion, can’t I? Call out to Him, and you’ll get on the other side of that moment…that’s how Jesus’ life tells me to manage my anxiety at those times. Eventually, that’s where paradise awaits…     

See video here for Redman’s own story about the song’s development:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjejhf_matt-redman-story-behind-never-once_music

Some biographic information on composer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Redman

Come Let Us Worship and Bow Down -- Dave Doherty

What’s it like to be in exile? That question and its answer may be the impetus and the foundation for the worship song “Come, Let Us Worship and Bow Down” that Dave Doherty wrote in 1980. The 20^th Century version of this 2,500-year old tune may have also had at least three ministers’ (or priests’) fingerprints on it, a span that shows its therapy has remained potent for perhaps millions or even billions of people searching for purpose and reconnection with Him. That’s enough to make me interested in seeing what this treatment, first discovered over two millennia ago advises – how about you? It might be helpful to imagine yourself in the Temple (perhaps like the one in the picture), in a moment when a Levite first discovered and communicated this truth. What was that Levite priest thinking?

Dave Doherty was feeling low and distant from Him one day in 1980 on the New Jersey turnpike. His spiritual high of working during the previous decade in a growing ministry in a church, and with three musical compatriots, had departed, and he was stuck making ends meet. Driving a delivery truck, he clung to his tenuous faith by listening to a radio minister named Clinton White that day. Something White said must have struck a nerve in Doherty, and the next thing he knew he was weeping on the side of the road, a cathartic experience he admits. Doherty says that day he learned to be in the moment with God, to trust Him as protector and guide. A few days later, he composed – or, more accurately, rediscovered -- the song “Come, Let Us Worship and Bow Down”, a reiteration of two verses of the 95^th Psalm (verses 6-7). What was it Clinton White had said over the radio that touched Doherty? Perhaps it was something that Psalm 95:6-7 summed up for him, something that gave him the key to unlocking the door to the spiritual prison he’d been in.  

Had it been like prison, or was it in fact more like exile for Doherty? The anonymous individual, most likely a Levitical priest who composed Psalm 95, knew what exile was like. He and others like him had returned to the Promised Land sometime in the 5^th Century before Christ (400-500 B.C.), after several generations of banishment in Persia. It would be an understatement to say that the Jews felt something pretty special as they adored freely the true God after such a long hiatus, reconnecting their deep beliefs with open worship. These Jews must have gone through lots of negative emotions before the homecoming high, perhaps similar to what was impacting the guy on a New Jersey freeway some 2,500 years later. Disappointment, disillusionment, and distance…what believer hasn’t felt those emotions at times? Maybe Clinton White had too, and had returned. There’s reassurance, knowing that I’m not permanently losing my faith, when I walk in the wrong direction temporarily. Kneel and acknowledge that He’s the solution for my anxieties – that’s what Dave Doherty discovered. His Psalm 95 song tells me he had a remarkable moment with Him, in a most holy, special place, even if it was a freeway. Maybe it’s time to revisit the Temple.

The source for Dave Doherty’s song story is the book “Celebrate Jesus: The Stories behind Your Favorite Praise and Worship Songs”, by Phil Christensen and Shari MacDonald, Kregel Publications, 2003.

A Living Prayer – Ron Block

Ron Block has seen ups and downs, ins and outs over the last 15 years, and he discovered how to maintain a healthy perspective through all of it. His music-writing is a mirror of his walk, he says, of the closeness that he’s been nurturing with God. If that process sounds like a recipe for prayer, then it’s no accident that his song “A Living Prayer” has struck a chord with listeners who identify with its lyrics. And, it’s no surprise either why it received a 2006 Gospel Music Association Dove award for the Bluegrass Song of the Year. The song was part of a record titled “Lonely Runs Both Ways”, which Block recorded with Alison Kraus and Union Station. What was Block thinking about when he wrote it? Was he feeling alone, as the record’s title and the song’s lyrics suggest?

Here’s what Block says briefly (see the link here: http://www.ronblock.com/site.php?em2643=145169_-1__0_~0_-1_3_2010_0_0&content=writings&em2642=

). Block does say that he’s alone, and that rough roads and griefs abound, but yet he doesn’t dwell on these realities. Jesus is the answer, Block’s biographic sketch relates on his website, and as he talks in detail about this song. Instead of wallowing in downbeat emotions, Block leads the worshipper to feel secure in the God-to-human relationship, to let one’s life reflect this trust. Block’s goal is to find at life’s end that he’s been ‘a vehicle or vessel of His Spirit’. And so, Block’s words ‘take my life and let me be’ are his ambitious lifelong plea to Him. This is one we seldom hear even believers say --‘Lord, just use me’. ‘Protect’, ‘heal’, or ‘show’, but not too often ‘Use’ me, are the words that stick out in my conversations with the Almighty.

Here’s something you might not expect to hear from a Christian. Block says the song’s life message isn’t that I “try to do good and avoid doing bad”, nor that I “try to be a witness”, nor “try to be Christ-like”. No, the idea is not that I try to do anything. Isn’t it strange that in God’s calculus, I become a living prayer by giving up my life? Block’s song conveys that there is true peace and contentment in giving up, in submitting to God. Stop striving, and just let God’s presence and purpose wash over and through me, I muse out loud to Him and to myself. Prayer’s heart is surrender, I’m told. Jesus did this too…another good reason to pray like this.

The Lord’s My Shepherd – King David, and Francis Rous

Was David enjoying a bucolic evening in the park, watching a sunset maybe, when he wrote the 23rd psalm? Most of the verses make one think it must have been a peaceful episode. Green pastures, a banquet table, God’s comfort, and a place in His home, all spelled out for the worshipper in this psalm-song “The Lord’s My Shepherd”. Sounds pretty inviting, doesn’t it?

One verse about a shadowy, dangerous area tells us that there was trouble brewing - - even death. But even there, the Lord Shepherd is the relief and safety valve. But, it was probably David’s experience that sparked the way this song is typically used today, a time when trouble was evident, and God was needed. David was running for his life, in mortal danger. Commentators on Psalm 23 say that he wrote it while in the wilderness of Judea, after his son Absalom seized the kingdom. The verses in 2 Samuel (15:14, 30; and 16:13) give us a glimpse of what it’s like on the run. David was tired, desperate, and feeling depressed. The way the 23rd psalm is used today, one might think that David penned it for use at a funeral -- maybe his own that he saw on the near horizon? But in the desert where we think he wrote this, it seems as if David wasn’t ready to cash it all in. The other verses Samuel records show that David was worried, sure, but also practical and plucky, with a plan and loyal followers around him to execute his counterattack. The psalm tells us David’s plan also included some internal strategy, a divine one. God. David drew on the power he knew his intimate Friend promised, a reassurance that maybe even his earthly comrades could not fathom completely. David, the man after God’s heart, shows a fidelity to the Lord, his Shepherd, in this praise. David had been in lots of scrapes in his life, so he was used to feeling God’s protection even when his surroundings called for pessimism. That’s a feeling I wish I could put in a bottle, to use when I need it most.

The “Lord’s My Shepherd”, though written by the composer-king some 3,000 years ago, has been sung as we know it today only in the last 350 years, since 1650. Francis Rous put together the Scottish Psalter for the church in Britain in the 17th Century, an effort that he felt would make all 150 Psalms, as sung by worshippers, more true to the actual Bible text. Consequently, “The Lord’s My Shepherd” allows us to echo David’s words with precision, but the song also engenders feelings, engaging the other side of me – I think with my mind, but I also sense with my spirit and emotions. The song Rous has constructed for us is that feeling of reassurance in a bottle that I can open and consume when I feel most troubled. That’s what I need at a loved one’s funeral. The song’s history now tells me that it’s more than a dirge, though. It’s for the hopeful, too, the forward-looking. No longer do I sigh and feel an unmet longing for the camaraderie that David and God shared. The words and music of the song King David and Francis Rous penned for me are a balm for all kinds of hurt. I might feel like I’m running in the Judean wilderness, but there is a way through it when my Shepherd is near.

One source for information about the song story “The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006. Also see the book “Psalms – Folk Songs of Faith", by Ray C. Stedman (copyright 2006 by Elaine Stedman), edited by James D. Denney, Discovery House Publishers, PO Box 3566, Grand Rapids, MI 49501.

The Steadfast Love of the Lord – Jeremiah, and Amy Bessire

See if you can guess what the following cities have in common: St. Petersburg (alternately named Leningrad), Berlin, Warsaw, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Jerusalem. Others could probably be added to that list, especially ones you might be intimately familiar with if you were alive and living in them in Europe or Japan in the 1939-1945 period. War, and utter misery. That’s the common theme, and for those of us who watch the History Channel (some call it the War Channel), this probably wasn’t too hard to guess.

Jerusalem had an eyewitness 2,600 years ago, and he wrote some words that we sing today. Yet, these words don’t sound a lot like someone witnessing horror…in fact, they sound like words of hope and glad tidings. What was the prophet Jeremiah thinking when he wrote the words ‘The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases…’? As he watched the shockwave reverberate in Jerusalem in 586 B.C., Jeremiah found the words to describe the misery in the book of Lamentations, but amidst them he also wrote the words in chapter three (verses 22-24, Revised Standard Version) that we sing cheerfully. It’s a measure of his faith, that the prophet was able to summon these words while observing an abject nightmare. It’s like stumbling upon an oasis in the middle of a vast desert. Unexpected is too tame a word to describe this phenomenon. One would think the composer must have lost his mind, and indeed many spectators through history probably did think prophets were a bit unbalanced – doomsday predictors bent on disturbing the calm, usually. In this case, Jeremiah is doing the opposite, glimpsing the world through rose-colored glasses while all around is utter despair. How’s he do it?

Today, Jeremiah’s unavailable for interview (maybe I’ll see him in heaven?), but maybe there’s some contemporary insights from other wars that can instruct us. I watched with fascination the movie ‘The Pianist’ a few years ago, a true story of how a Polish classical pianist – a Jew – survived in Warsaw in World War II (see picture of city above). He scratched, he clawed to live in 1944-45. One of the last scenes during the war shows him performing for an audience of one, a compassionate Nazi officer who lets him live, and even gives him his winter coat and some food. It’s as if the tide has turned at that moment, when the bottom has been reached, and one human being helps another because he recognizes beauty - the Jew’s piano playing - amid the ruin. Maybe that’s Jeremiah’s secret, that he was captivated by something beautiful, despite the devastation all around him. That’s God. He’s the beauty I can see, the oasis I encounter when there’s nothing else left to sustain me. In May 2008, someone asked the music-writer of “The Steadfast Love of the Lord”, Amy Bessire, to comment on her contribution to this song. Her humble response sounds strangely similar…‘it was all God’. (She was visiting the Four Lakes Church of Christ in Madison, Wisconsin at the time). He’s the oasis, He’s beauty, and He’s music, all metaphors that Jeremiah’s and Amy’s song calls to mind as I sing about His steadfast love.

 The following website contains a comment by the composer who put the prophet Jeremiah’s words to music: http://www.fourlakescoc.org/052908/971web.pdf

In His Presence – Dick and Melodie Tunney

Dick and Melodie Tunney might not look like it, nor sound like it, but they needed help in the 1980s. This musical couple met in the 1970s while on tour with the group TRUTH, married, became well-entrenched and successful in the Christian music industry in Nashville, Tennessee, and once again toured all over in the 1980s. Busy. That’s how the Tunneys’ lives were. And, in between all this hubbub, they began raising two daughters. Sound familiar? I take a day off, just to vegetate, when life’s tempo overwhelms me. They probably did some of the same things you and I do to manage the hectic pace. On the other hand, a few words from a song they co-wrote in 1988, “In His Presence”, suggest this composition was part of an atypical therapy for them.

By 1986, both Dick and Melodie were travelling with “Let There Be Praise”, an effort that covered 150 cities over the next 18 months. Let’s see, that’s probably on average two cities every week, a really intensive way to pile up the frequent flier miles. It’s no surprise, then, that the song they wrote in 1988 might say something about this whirlwind. “In His Presence” tells us they found ‘comfort’, ‘peace’, and ‘assurance’ from the One they worship. It’s a brief, straightforward message they coax us to sing, a common thread all of us need to embrace at times. That’s really the only way to cope with turmoil – stop, and get help. No, strike that. Not help, which implies I need only assistance from God. Instead, the Tunneys asked Him to cover them, to envelop them. The next few years of the Tunneys biography tell us they took other measures also, perhaps listening to the Spirit’s call in the song they wrote. They relate that the touring had separated them periodically over a 15-month stretch, and that eventually, a decision had to be made. They returned home, to a quieter pace, after praying and listening to counsel. Their family took priority, albeit for a brief few years, and then they took their music on the road to 400 churches over a 12-year span. By the time daughters Whitney and Kelsey were high-schoolers, the Tunney parents once again slowed down.

Were they listening to the song’s message again, asking for the peace God provides? It seems to be a message well-calibrated for the Tunneys, and for me too, over the long haul. I don’t travel as much nor think I’ll write over 150 songs like the Tunneys in my life. (The Tunneys now also manage a seminar, based on the example in 1 Chronicles 25:7, to teach music and worship principles to others.) Nevertheless, there’s plenty in the space I occupy to consume this traveler’s time and effort, and so I identify with Dick and Melodie. With His presence, I don’t just exist, though – there’s more to me than the space I inhabit. I can think about transformation and renewal with the Tunneys’ song.

Information on the Tunneys was obtained from the book “The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006.

Also see the following websites for information about the Tunneys. http://www.tunneymusic.com/about.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_and_Melodie_Tunney

Great Is Thy Faithfulness – Thomas Chisholm

Perhaps Thomas Chisholm identified with the people of Jerusalem, at least a little – what do you think? In 1923 he wrote the song “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”, a poem that calls out to worshippers from the book of Lamentations, a cry of people in abject misery. Maybe on one hand, one would have to experience war to really appreciate what Lamentations has to say. Pictures of bombed-out cities in Europe in 1945, where people reverted to wild, animal-like behavior to survive spring to mind. Have you seen the film “The Pianist”, the biography of the Jewish-Polish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman, who endured the horror of Warsaw in World War II ? That’s akin to what Jerusalem might have been like when under siege by Babylon. Yet, nothing from Chisholm’s life appears to be Szpilman-like. In fact, Chisholm says nothing especially stark in his life, including in 1923, inspired the words of the ode he composed. But Chisholm’s humble life experiences and shortcomings do relate something with which we can all probably identify, especially if we compare them to what God offers.

Chisholm grew up in a log cabin, was only minimally educated, and suffered from ill health, a chronic problem that made his lifelong income pretty limited. If that sounds like a recipe for disappointment, Chisholm must have ignored it, because he shares his ‘astonishing gratefulness’ at God’s work in his life. So grateful was he, that we know of 1,200 poems that Chisholm wrote in his 94 years. Can you think of 1,200 worthwhile things you’ve done in your life! Nevertheless, the Lamentations-origin of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” hints that Chisholm was aware of his own life’s regrets. After all, aren’t we all at times, when dealt reverses? Did he perhaps subconsciously identify with the background of Jeremiah’s message, and so compose from a visceral vantage point? The weeping prophet did not make Chisholm the weeping poet, however. No, the words of his song are no less upbeat than the few optimistic verses in Lamentations that the prophet gave us. Even a cursory, ten-minute reading of the book leaves one seeing the verses Chisholm focused on as an oasis, a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak outlook. It’s pretty heartening that a piece of Jeremiah’s song, composed 2,600 years ago, was renewed in 1923, and still has power in our century too. Does it say something to you today? It’s 2009…have you been suffering? Have you lost a job, maybe your home? How’s your health? Some of us might even feel like we’re at war, depending on where we live, or where we’ve been. But, the glimmer we all can get from Thomas Chisholm’s tune is this: God’s faith cuts through the gloom. Chisholm saw the light, despite what happened to him. So did Jeremiah.

Chisholm’s song reminds me that the Lord’s faith may be compared to His creation (verse 2), so that if the seasons persist, the stars still shine, and the sun rises and sets each day, I know God is still near. Despite the misery I may find here, God’s promises are for me. He controls. The world still turns. The Son’s life-offer endures. What a God! What a deal!

Information on the song was obtained from the books “101 Hymn Stories”, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982; “Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions”, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 1990; and “The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006.

God Moves in a Mysterious Way – William Cowper

Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? (Job 11:7)

William Cowper (pronounced Coo-per) had evidently experienced in a personal way, and probably on more than one occasion, the mystery of God. If I had struggled emotionally as Cowper did throughout his life, perhaps I would have thrown in the towel, so to speak. After all, who would choose to worship someone he could not understand, whose ways left one feeling lost, maybe empty. Have you been there? There have been times when I’ve been blue, wondering what to do with myself. To be alone, without hope, is a pit. It’s at that point that most of us would, hopefully, be coaxed to talk to a friend or in a more serious case perhaps even a professional. Whatever the course of action, its objective would be therapeutic. Take a few moments and consider William Cowper’s therapy, which is revealed in his life-hymn “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” that he wrote in 1774.

Cowper had occasional depression much of his life, probably rooted in early life when his mother died when he was six years old. He also struggled with memories of teasing at school and his father’s interference in a relationship with a woman as a young adult. As a young man, his father also urged him to study law, from which he suffered such mental anguish that he attempted suicide. As a patient in a mental institution, he recovered, and discovered therapy that had three legs – Christianity, poetry, and friendship. He discovered his need for God, and fused that with the poetry he began to compose, and with the camaraderie of Christians. One of them was John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace”, his collaborator throughout the remainder of his life. Together, they produced the Olney Hymnal in 1779.

“God Moves in a Mysterious Way” is, some believe, the last hymn that Cowper wrote, and though he fought the gloom, one senses in the song’s words that he had at last found a method for peace. Some believe the hymn was composed after Cowper was providentially delivered from a suicide attempt one evening. It’s said that his carriage to the Thames River became lost on the way to the place where Cowper intended to take his own life, and instead returned him unexpectedly to his home. From that incident, he may have written this great hymn. He rose above his pangs of despair with this formula: God can decipher the things in my life that perplex and trouble me. It’s said his last words were “I’m not shut out of heaven after all”, a hope-filled testament for anyone with lingering doubt about salvation’s assurance. God may often be inscrutable, but it seems as though Cowper had discovered that’s OK. If I feel mystified by things in my life, Cowper says in his composition, ‘Give it to the One above’. Who better than the Mysterious One can make sense out of riddles?

The following website has all six verses: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/m/gmovesmw.htm

Information on the life of William Cowper is found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cowper See more information on the song discussed above in The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006. Also, see Amazing Grace: 36 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; and 101 Hymn Stories by Kenneth Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982.

See the following blog and another website on the song’s specific and inspirational story of how it was written: http://wordwisehymns.com/2009/11/15/today-in-1731-william-cowper-born/

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/m/gmovesmw.htm

A Mighty Fortress – Martin Luther

The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Psalm 46:7)

There's not much one could add to the story of Martin Luther, and his great hymn "A Mighty Fortress". It's said that it's based upon Psalm 46, which many believe Luther sang often with his compatriot Philipp Melancthon when they felt their cause was in great distress. There's four theories regarding exactly when Luther wrote the song -- all were when Luther and his fellow strugglers faced a test, a confrontation with the government, or were remembering those who gave the supreme sacrifice in the struggle to reform the church. See the websites below…they will inspire and inform you. And, the next time you sing Luther’s hymn, thank God that his servant Luther stood firm, that he was girded by God’s promises – that our God is a ROCK. 

(Dec. 2019 update): Another possibility is that the deaths in the summer of 1527 of three people close to Luther prompted the hymn’s composition, those three people being Leo Kaiser (a martyr for expressing his evangelical faith), and Hanna Bugenhagen (who died from the Plauge) and her daughter who was stillborn.  
 

See the following websites for lotsa history on Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mighty_Fortress_Is_Our_God

http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Poetry/A-Mighty-Fortress.html

Also see the biography entitled “Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World”, by Eric Metaxas, Penguin Books, 2017, p. 386 for discussion of the triple deaths that affected Luther in 1527.