Just ask some country music performers in Nashville, and they will probably acknowledge that Clint Lagerberg is a talented songwriter and producer. But, if you mention only the name of his song “For All You’ve Done” in Christian songwriting circles, you might bump into a couple of songs by other writers (like Jason Ingram, and by Reuben Morgan at Hillsong) who’ve likewise used the same title that Clint employed for this praise to God. So, beware when you go hunting out there in web-land! Clint had some different and personal thoughts about why this God was so praiseworthy, so see if you can get what he’s driving at when he talks to God with words like ‘mess’, ‘cleanser’, and ‘crushed’…and that’s just in his first verse. What would motivate Clint to write these words, perhaps while in the confines of his Nashville studio? (See the seal for Nashville here.)
The short answer is ‘we don’t know’, when asked why Clint Lagerberg composed in 2002 the words and music to ‘For All You’ve Done”. But he holds nothing back in this confessional, so maybe we don’t really need a lot of stirring amplification that he could give us in an interview. The lyrics paired up with the music that Clint created are plenty provocative all on their own. ’I’m a screw-up’, he says, basically, with a ‘mess’ of a life that only a merciful God can clean up. This God elected to be ‘crushed by human hands formed from dust’ (v.1) -- dust that God Himself fashioned into that which would kill Him. Could any other words, thick with sad irony, better describe the surreal relationship between our Creator and you and me? One can hardly speak these words, let alone sing them, without a bittersweet taste in them. Clint’s feelings are not just his own, are they? Clint uses other words that are very evocative, and frankly not often heard in our songs. Clint says he has a ‘learning curve’ (v.2), an expression that has made its way into our lexicon only within the last 100 years or so, and a way for Clint to admit to God that even moderns like us haven’t figured out life’s challenges. Finally, Clint has a voice that cries out with ‘erode’ and ‘explode’(v.3), opposites really – one that says anxious feelings melt in upon themselves and vanish, while the other exclaims a redeemed sinner’s profound relief in a celebratory eruption. As Clint’s feelings throughout the song build to verse three’s crescendo, so does the believer’s life as it elapses and nears its conclusion. That’s worth remembering, as one becomes more and more aware of his mortality.
I cannot do more to fix all my past mistakes, especially as I get further away from them, and particularly the ones that sometimes bother my conscience, even decades later. If you’re reading this, does it sound familiar? There’s plenty of people I can visualize, characters whose error-prone ways could have doomed them. How conscious-stricken were Judas and Peter, two Apostles who made similar errors to disown Jesus in His last few days and hours before being executed. One wept bitterly and subsequently witnessed boldly for Christ, while the other could not live with his mistake…which one will you be like today? Later, Paul likewise was confronted with his gross errors, and called himself the chief sinner many years later. He could have sunk into a pit, never to emerge because of his former life as an ardent Jesus opponent and heralded Pharisee, and yet he let God work many wonders in and through him as he strained forward, instead of regretting by looking backward. (Philippians 3:4-14) I remember a friend, Jim Wilson, who had the same attitude in my lifetime, before he went to be with God in March 2018. Whose life speaks to you today? Does Jesus’ raised life say something that you can hear today?
See here details on the song’s writer (Lagerberg), and the group (Point of Grace) that sings it here: Point Of Grace – For All You've Done Lyrics | Genius Lyrics
See here for an article about the songwriter: Featured SVS Producer: Clint Lagerberg - Music Producer & Songwriter (svsound.com)
See here for a description of one of the song’s more unique expressions. Learning curve - Wikipedia
The following notice was issued with the image of the Nashville seal: This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1928 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart as well as a detailed definition of "publication" for public art. Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (50 p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 p.m.a.), Mexico (100 p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties. File:Seal of Nashville, Tennessee.png - Wikimedia Commons
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