The Lord's Prayer (It's Yours) -- Jesus, Matt Maher, Bryan Fowler, Jacob Sooter

Another way of saying what they thought about in this song was the oft-used acronym KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid (but make sure you say this especially to yourself if you use that ‘Stupid’ word, and not to others). Don’t make something too complicated, and particularly when you look at “The Lord’s Prayer”, as Matt Maher, Bryan Fowler, and Jacob Sooter did when they repeated and updated it with a few reminders for themselves (See here the late 19^th Century artwork The Lord’s Prayer, by James Tissot.)  The words Jesus used to teach His hearers in His great sermon (Matthew 6/Luke 11) were also those by which He lived and taught every day, so when Matt, Bryan, and Jacob put in a few extra words, they must have been looking at Him and His life’s consistency, and how they thought they should respond to Him daily, too. With any familiar words used repeatedly, day after day, there is a risk that the words become a rote exercise, but one of these three 21^st Century composers says his regular use of the prayer has had the opposite effect. Should we expect that the prayer basics that Jesus taught would remain any less stimulating for us as the day He first spoke them?

 

Jesus readily responded to the people who asked Him how to pray, something that really indicated how the people already trusted Him. And yet, He didn’t offer them promises about Roman comeuppance, about redemption of the Jewish nation to its former autonomous status, or about prosperity for themselves. It was instead all about each individual’s one-to-one connection with God and with each other. In short, each of us needs to find ourselves in His corner and trust that He provides, prompting us to treat each other as He has treated us. Matt said in 2022 (perhaps a year after the 21^st Century version of the prayer-song was written) that he thought it was all about reminding himself about spiritual basics, when he and his family would echo Jesus’ words each day. Making things too complicated had been one of the spiritual traps into which he’d often fallen, Matt admits, so making this prayer a daily habit was intentional from a foundation-building perspective. Moreover, he found that he would discover something anew each time he mimicked Jesus in this way. Do you suppose Jesus intended this phenomenon when he taught the people? Certainly, Jesus wanted you and me to personalize the prayer, and because each day is new, how I live out that prayer just might change ever so slightly, or perhaps more radically on occasion, as my life unfolds from day to day. One might gather that that is what Matt and his two friends were also thinking when they added some words to the prayer, particularly the phrase ‘right here in my heart’, which is sung seven times to emphasize how today’s disciple responds to what Jesus said. Matt, Bryan, and Jacob added some other words to underscore that the world He created, and the kingdom Jesus came to initiate, are His…’it’s yours, all yours’. That is so very crucial to accept, not just as a believer, but as a human being created by Him. If I don’t acknowledge His ownership, I can spend my life as an empty exercise in accumulating stuff for myself, none of which I can take with me to the other side of mortality’s conclusion. On the other hand…   

 

…when I discover and accept that He’s the LORD, as in landlord and people-Lord too, then I can aim at the only target that makes sense: His kingdom. That’s the one that is enduring, because He brought it with Him when He was here on earth, and its expansion to millions and even billions of people since then just cannot be rolled back. Read Revelation, and remind yourself who wins in the end. Why would you not want to be connected to what He – the Resurrected One – has begun and which will overpower death, because He has already done so as the First-Born? I have no better option and no other plan that offers what He’s begun in His kingdom. Do you? See if Jesus’ simple, but still-potent words work for you.  

 

Read the story from the principal author-composer of this 21^st Century version of the prayer here: Matt Maher Goes Personal with "The Lord's Prayer (It's Yours)" : News : JubileeCast

 

See information on the image here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_The_Lord%27s_Prayer_(Le_Pater_Noster)_-_James_Tissot.jpg (found at this link -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Prayer ) …The author died in 1902, so 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. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1930.

 

He Knows My Name – Tommy Walker

 He wasn’t thrilled with the topic, and really needed someone else to push him into it. What if Tommy Walker’s Divine Maker had felt that way in the beginning, if He had pursued half-heartedly the man-making project, if He had even decided that “He Knows My Name” was just a momentary and insignificant cerebral fragment? Instead, Tommy decided, eventually, that God’s inspiration wasn’t just whimsical, and that an upcoming sermon by a minister in a Los Angeles church (see the seal of Los Angeles here) was the stimulant he could not ignore. After all, he was a worship minister, and this was his role – to write a song when so directed. God is creative in His very nature. So, when someone tells you to mimic that characteristic, what’s that say about you if you refuse? Tommy had already decided that God’s work in his human-ness wasn’t an accident, so he answered with what this minister was expecting. Just flip the switch, and say ‘OK, I’m ready; you’ve got me, God. Use me to say what You want’.

Actually, Tommy Walker’s Los Angeles preacher who asked him for a song in 1996 probably deserves some notable credit for ‘He Knows…’, because that was the title of the sermon that he’d already chosen. You can almost see Tommy sighing as this minister (Mark Pickerill) pitched the idea at him; what had stirred this minister’s thoughts, anyway? Tommy admits he needed ‘sheer discipline’ to agree to this, because he really didn’t feel motivated, even as the poetry began to develop and ink flowed from his pen. Tommy was initially convinced this would be only an average-quality song, but he stuck with it nevertheless.  Perhaps it was the simplicity of the concept that helped Tommy finally feel that something special was in work. Just go with the idea that this Creator made me, and scope out how He expressed Himself in that process. He doesn’t just know ‘my name’, He knows my ‘thoughts’. He gave me a ‘heart’, and my ‘tears’ are ones He gives me. And, He listens when I ‘call’, because He knows what’s going on inside this person He made. It’s all about intimacy with this God and me, Tommy must have decided, as he continued to write. It started in the very first few moments, ‘before even time began’, that I became His. ‘In His hands…’, and ‘…His own’, are words that Tommy used to confess that he could not exist, even as a thought, if God had not first been who He is. And, despite my ability to leave or try to ignore Him, He won’t ‘leave me’. Perhaps that’s because something is more true of God than even His created humans understand at times: that He cannot remove Himself from those He made, since we’re in His image. A human may decide to run away from Him when he really doesn’t want to be part of His Creator. How long can that really persist, one might ask? How much sadness does that engender in God when that happens? Jonah ran the other way, and a whole generation snubbed their noses in Noah’s day. They didn’t have God in human likeness to change their minds. What excuse do you and I have?

Tommy includes a lot of scriptural reminders that God does indeed see each of us intimately (see the link below that show what many writers have said – John [John and 1 John), Isaiah, Jeremiah, David [in Ps. 56, 139], and Moses [in Exodus]). He does feel what we feel, cries over those He made, as the bible’s shortest verse relates (John 11:35).  Why’d He create, if the result has pained Him so? That He’s inscrutable is also who He is, but not when it comes to reaching out for me. It’s a lifelong education, this knowing Him. He already knows me, and yet I cannot help feeling the frustration that there’s always a deficit on my end of this understanding. But, I cannot deny the link is there, and that to fight Him is vain. He knows you and me. Tommy thought at first that this was a ‘so what?’ Then, he thought about it some more. Keep thinking, he says.      

Information on the story behind “He Knows My Name” can be found in Tommy Walker’s book Songs from Heaven, written with Phil Kassel in 2005, published by Regal Books.

Also see the story here: https://www.tommywalkerministries.org/media/song-of-the-week-2019-16-he-knows-my-name

See information on the seal of Los Angeles here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seal_of_Los_Angeles.svg . The seal  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. This work was created by a government unit (including state, county, city, and municipal government agencies) that derives its powers from the laws of the State of California and is subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act (Government Code § 6250 et seq.). It is a public record that was not created by an agency which state law has allowed to claim copyright, and is therefore in the public domain in the United States.

Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing) -- Brenton Brown and Brian Doerkson

 

It was not the most auspicious epiphany that brought about this song in 2000, as both of these songwriters would admit. One of them, Brian Doerkson, was actually feeling rather agitated that his visiting friend, Brenton Brown, was trying to get him to say “Hallelujah, Your Love is Amazing” on a difficult day in his family’s home in Abbotsford (in Canada’s British Columbia, see a picture of its downtown here). It was the pretty ordinary and lackluster response of Brian that left Brenton unimpressed with his friend’s spontaneous musical suggestion regarding the song’s unfinished chorus. But, what ultimately emerged in the words just reaffirmed that the musical Spirit can work in circumstances that are challenging and distracting. In fact, if He doesn’t, what’s that say about His presence in everyday life, especially when things can be pretty tiresome? It was also Brian who thought that this ever-present God idea in the praises of His people should inhabit this song. His name carries with it praise, both of these two songwriters eventually emphasized.  

 

It was a February day in early 2000, a time when one of his six children was pitching a fit, Brian would remember, and his ebullient friend Brenton entered a room in the house, all fired up about a song idea. Brenton already had the first verse, but needed a catchy chorus phrase. He must have thought Brian was pretty unfocussed and uninspired when Brian immediately responded with the song’s title words, particularly when he suggested that just repeating this phrase multiple times was the hook for which Brenton was searching. This spur-of-the-moment, seemingly inadequate idea actually said all they needed, Brian reiterated. After all, the word ‘hallelujah’ fundamentally says ‘praise God’ in its original language (Hebrew), so when a believer wants to return God’s love in adulation, what could be better than this single, potent word? Together, the two friends concocted a second verse, one that concludes by saying their invention is in fact a ‘God song’. How many times would ‘hallelujah’ be enough to offer Him what He’s owed? At least 30 times, is what Brian and Brenton must have eventually decided, if you listen to the various renditions of the song. And yet, that cannot be enough to do Him justice, either. And, the verses they constructed likewise say only a few of the worthiest things about Him – that His love corresponds to so many adjectives, like ‘amazing’, ‘steady’, ‘unchanging’, besides being like a ‘mountain’ in its ‘firm(ness), while also being a ‘mystery’, and ‘gentl(e)’ as it ‘surrounds’, ‘lifts’, and ‘carries’ the believer (verse 1). You can imagine the two songwriters may have thought of personal episodes when they said His love is ‘surprising’, as it’s ‘rising’ and ‘glowing’ from the very ‘inside(s)’ of a person, as he revels in the ‘goodness’ of this God-love (verse 2). They conclude their ode to Him with ‘Your love makes me sing’, perhaps the only appropriate way to demonstrate that this lovefest cannot be captured with mere words, but needs a music infusion.

 

Light the heart’s fuse with the love synergy you share with your Creator. That’s what Brian and Brenton coax from the believer who’s calling out to God in a song, this song with God’s name intrinsically attached to it. Is there anything He’s not done to fertilize, nurture, teach, and sacrifice for me, to secure my devotion? He’s given not just His love, but the method for lifting His name, too. He touches those He chooses with a tune-making nature and vocabulary to birth something from His own great heart. He’s the essence of life, like the nuclear core with its mass attracting electrons to orbit His magnetic pole. God is indeed the critical mass of love, for without Him there would be no ‘hallelujah’, no reason for life itself. That’s something that it seems Brian and Brenton want us to remember.       

   

The song story is found in the following book: I Could Sing of Your Love Forever, by Lindsay Terry, Thomas Nelson publishers, 2008.

See information on one of the writers here: Brian Doerksen - Wikipedia

See a description of the song’s title word here: Hallelujah - Wikipedia

For link to and information about the image, see here: File:Downtownabbotsford.JPG - Wikimedia Commons.  This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Sonicwolf at English Wikipedia. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: Sonicwolf grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

Song for the Nations -- Chris Christensen

 

Chris Christensen had been to many places in the world, even before he turned 30, so he must have been considering that what he would write would emerge from his travelling background. And so, it must have come as little surprise that he was in the midst of a trip between Portland and Seattle on the American northwest coast one morning in the mid-1980s when “Song for the Nations” sprang from inside him. It would take him several hours to get where he was going to a conference, so Chris took advantage of the time, most likely while he was on stretches of Interstate 5 between northwest Oregon and the Puget Sound area of Washington, where Seattle is located. So, how many times did Chris pass a road sign, like this one, on that trip? Chris probably could not say, nor whether the signs might have been a subliminal reminder that he possessed something like a traveler’s gene, and a desire to spread a message wider and faster than he could travel.

 

Chris Christensen may have germinated the seed for ‘Song for the Nations’ while he spent much of his first quarter-century travelling between three continents. His missionary parents moved the family from the United States to South Africa when he was but a toddler. By his mid-teens, Chris’ family had come back to the U.S., where Chris would stay for college. But, then he and Laura (whom he would marry) began their land-hopping between Africa, Europe, and North America, as Chris’ music ministry carried them abroad. It was on one return trip to the U.S., when Chris attended a conference in Seattle, that he wrote the song so effortlessly between there and Portland. He must have felt that this episode to finally bring the song to fruition was leading him somewhere, particularly when he had the chance to sing the song for the first time at the conference. He’d been many places by that time, and seen many versions of Christianity in various languages, so what he wanted to say could not be limited by human communication barriers. What things did Chris say in the song, ideas that compelled one man at the conference to tell Chris that ‘Song…’ would certainly be used by God? Shining God’s light (v.1), spreading a message of hope and healing through salvation (v.2-3), and of ultimate joy (v.4) that would make His kingdom spread over the globe (v.5) were what Chris envisioned. God’s not complicated, Chris seemed to want to say; He’s just waiting for people with open arms, using us mortals to embrace seekers with His presence.

 

Chris’ vision wasn’t to touch just some people. His emphasis is on multitudes – notice the plural nature of his words. ‘Nations’, ‘peoples’, ‘whole world’ are repeated in every verse of his song. Chris had no doubt seen how some things in God’s delivery and people’s receipt of the message are universal – they can go anywhere and be recognized without much explanation. Similarly, it must have dawned on Chris in all his travels, that some road signs and rules have common features. Did the signs for Interstate 5 that day in the mid-1980s look much different to Chris than others on different freeways in the U.S., or indeed in other countries on different continents? You and I also know traffic lights when we see them – green is ‘go’, yellow is ‘caution’, and red is ‘stop’ just about anywhere we could go on planet Earth. Chris would probably agree. Are you on green, yellow, or red with God on your journey?

 

 

 

See author biography here, which also contains the brief episode of the song’s birth: https://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/Chris_Christensen_The_American_songwriter_and_worship_leader/40276/p1/