Lord Most High -- Don Harris and Gary Sadler

 They were reading their bibles and listening to the Spirit so they could grasp something they wanted to express musically. That much we can reasonably deduce from what Don Harris and Gary Sadler said when they addressed the “Lord Most High” in the mid-1990s (the song was in print by 1996). Had one or both of them ever seen the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, and one of the amazing frescoes depicting God on high (in Michelangelo’s mind’s eye, God is imagined here dividing the light from darkness [1509]), doing and being only what is possible for Him? Don and Gary would probably admit that their inspired words emanated from ancient writers who had as much beauty to describe as Michelangelo did with his paintbrush. And yet, God in His magnificence cannot be adequately illustrated with just a few well-placed brushstrokes or vivid adjectives. That realization did not arrest these two songwriters’ quest, however.

There’s little or no information about Don and Gary and what specific circumstances fired their musical engines to produce this song, though we can make educated guesses at where they looked biblically for inspiration. Don may have been in the Mobile, Alabama area, and Gary could have been in the Nashville, Tennessee area (he and his family were likewise in Mobile at least in 1991, so he and Don may have actually interacted there for this song), but it is very likely that the words they collaborated to pen for this song lived first in some holy scriptures, as in Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, Zephaniah, and maybe even Jonah. The title phrase of the Harris-Sadler song was (or was very close to) what the ancient, mysterious priest Melchizedek and Abram said about God (Elyon) in the aftermath of Abram’s confrontation with some kings (Genesis 14:18-20); it was also how one psalmist named Asaph remembered God (Ps. 78:35) as he recited a bit of Israel’s history. Could it also have been how David concluded a song-address (Psalm 7:17) to Him? Were Don and Gary echoing others psalmists when they sang that He is ‘exalted in every nation’ (Ps. 46:10; Psalm 99:2; and Psalm 113:4)? Was the phrase ‘from the ends of the earth’ originally from the prophet Isaiah (42:10), in which a song of praise to the Lord is mentioned? How about the ‘depths of the sea’; could that have been Jonah in his desperate state, when he was hurled into the sea and from where he cried out and eventually praised God while inside the great fish (2:9)? Was it a paraphrase of Zephaniah’s words (3:9) that sparked the two songwriters’ words about ‘the lips of all peoples’? Don and Gary probably had discovered previously, as songwriters who were active many years before ‘Lord Most High’ was written, that God’s word is rich with music just waiting to be reiterated and appreciated, some two to three millennia after it was first promulgated.

It’s not difficult to accept that a single song, or one fresco, is one among the countless and ongoing works of art that He coaxes from us, His created image-bearers, so that the picture of Him is never a finished work. Perhaps we’d sing each song or look at each painting only once if we all had perfect memories, but that would in fact limit Him as our infinite Lord. Remembering how He’s interacted with those who’ve gone before us is at the core of what Don and Gary have provided us. It’s their way of saying that He’s not done, and is the same for us as He was for those ancient characters who we know only by name. He’s ‘the same yesterday and today and forever’ (Heb. 13:5). Sing Lord Most High again, picturing with just a bit more insight this time, the coming age in which you and I will say this to Him face-to-face. It’s not too soon to give this a trial run-through. 

See very scant information about one of the two songwriters here: https://www.praise.org.uk/hymnauthor/sadler-gary/

 

See some pretty brief information on one of the songwriters here: Don Harris (Christian) Lyrics, Songs, and Albums | Genius

 

See information on the image of God, the one Dividing Light from Darkness here: File:Dividing Light from Darkness.jpg - Wikimedia Commons.  This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. (US work that is in the public domain in the US for an unspecified reason, but presumably because it was published in the US before 1929.)