I Need You More -- Lindell Cooley and Bruce Haynes

 

‘It’s a very personal prayer moment with my Creator’ – that is probably something like what two songwriters would say if they were asked to explain why they said “I Need You More” in 1995. Lindell Cooley and Bruce Haynes were part of a burgeoning church in Pensacola, Florida (see its seal here) that they felt could draw closer to Him if each person would humble him- or herself at His feet. It’s not a lot more complicated than that, though they felt that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit would consequently be manifested in various and even unexpected ways. It’s an admission that anyone – even if you aren’t faithful to a Creator – would probably acknowledge: that life so often is out of my control, that I cannot handle everything on my own. So, the rational thing is to seek community and security. That’s one way. What Lindell and Bruce wanted to express is something more encompassing – someone even more able to take on all that I need. After all, He made me and the place in which I live. How’s that early 20^th Century and 1950s pop-song go?…’He’s got the whole world in His hands’.

 

There have been other versions of what Lindell and Bruce said in the mid-1990s, expressing our need for Him to be there, to intervene and bring calm to the anxious spirit. They include (but aren’t limited to) two other stories told here in this blog – see Lord, I Need You (by a quartet of songwriters in 2011, see entry for 6/23/2023), and I Need Thee Every Hour (by Annie Hawks, some 139 years earlier, see entry for 11/12/2017). That one word that all three songs have in common is need. Is anything more humbling, than to make this confession? Lindell and Bruce had one particular habit in mind when they wrote their needy song, and that was to facilitate prayer in the Brownsville Assembly of God church where they were witnessing people begging for their God to make Himself known. It was one of many songs on an album called Quiet Songs for Time Alone with God: Volume One – Prayer that they dedicated toward this activity…what would one appropriately call it? It’s more than a rite, or a sacrament, as one can tell in the lyrics that these two songwriters wrote to describe the attitude of the person prostrated before Him. Need is posed in several ways, according to Lindell and Bruce, and always as more. ‘More than yesterday’ and ‘more than ever before’, telling us that the praying person can see mortal existence only grows more challenging, but not more so than His care for me. ‘More than words can say’, but that’s why He gives of Himself, so that even my groans touch His heart (Romans 8:26). ‘More than the air I breathe’, ‘…than the song I sing’, ‘…than my next heartbeat’, ‘…than anything’ – what other things are more essential than breathing, and having a heartbeat? Lindell and Bruce are music-lovers, obviously, so being able to express themselves with a song is right up there with all of the other needs they mention.

 

He gives so much. Examine that list of needs that Lindell and Bruce tick off for us, and see if He’s not the answer to needs you have. There’s a whole lot of tangible things that they don’t mention – food, clothing, shelter, employment, relationships, and reasonably good health are all on the short list, and who among us hasn’t prayed to our Maker-Sustainer for all of these at various points? But, what Lindell and Bruce offer, is to realize that being able to pray to Him is the most basic need, even if some of what He apparently does happens in my involuntary responses, like my breathing and heart-beating. What if those weren’t present? That would be a four-alarm emergency, ‘call 911, get that E-squad here ASAP!’ Though He’s physically invisible, would it matter to my world if something equivalent happened to Him, that His breath (Genesis 2:7) and His great heartbeat present at creation’s dawn might expire? For now, He is still taking care of us and our planet. Could it be that He’s still there because He wants to hear from you and me? What more do you need today, than Him?      

 

 

Read about one of the two songwriters here: Lindell Cooley - Wikipedia

 

See here also: Lindell Cooley – Official Site of Music Missions International (archive.org)

 

Lindell Cooley | www.morningstarministries.org

 

Read here about the church where Cooley ministers: Grace Church Nashville

 

See here information about the seal of Pensacola and its public domain status: File:Seal of Pensacola, Florida.png - Wikimedia Commons   -- This work was created by a government unit (including state, county, and municipal government agencies) of the U.S. state of Florida. 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.

Refiner's Fire -- Brian Doerksen

Spontaneity. That one word sums up the moment when Brian Doerksen remembers that he heard and felt something at, of all places, a traffic light. He still doesn’t know what sparked this moment in 1990, but something – or Someone – within told him that he needed a “Refiner’s Fire” that day, that he needed to think about a metaphorical transformation, like how gold is refined. (See the picture here, that shows a metallurgical process called casting, in which molten gold is poured into a mold.) Purity was the ultimate destination that Brian quickly recognized, and so he gave his full attention to this prompting by the Spirit inside himself later that day, after arriving in a place where the sounds of traffic and 20^th Century life, even in a church, would not intrude. Like gold in the purification process, the believer who submits to this kind of procedure cannot do it piecemeal. The intensity of the surrounding environment is inescapable; it is consuming and reshaping what is present. He does this, if I let Him.

 

Brian was totally surprised when he began to hear the tones, as well as the suggestion of words that would become the first lyrics of this ‘Refiner’s Fire’. But unlike the metallurgical crucible, and how it overwhelms its contents, Brian says the tune he heard did not try to engulf him. Instead, this song – though penetrating for a few moments – would present itself only fleetingly, with some noticeable effervescence in the air about him in his car. Fading in and out, as if to attract his attention and make him curious, the song stayed with Brian until he arrived at the church where he worked. Once there, Brian was obedient to the persuasive and quietly persistent Spirit, and so he told his secretary to allow him some space – no calls or other distractions. He would have a similar epiphany when he composed another song years later (See ‘Come, Now Is the Time to Worship’ [Feb. 1, 2020 blog entry]), so could the Spirit have been inaugurating a method for Brian that was already being conceived for a future endeavor? Undoubtedly, Brian could not have known the answer to that question, for he was totally focused on the moment in 1990, and the time he needed to explore scripture and see what God says about purity and refinement. He was submissive at that moment, and so responded with poetry that served to that same end and the purifying result that his brief bible study showed him was the objective of any believer’s quest to be one with God. The song was finished in just a few hours. This ‘God-moment’ became a ‘God-and-Brian-listening-to-Him-moment’. Brian assented to being ‘gold’ and ‘silver’ in His hands, being ‘set apart’, and being ‘cleanse(d)…from sin’. ‘Choos(ing) to be holy’, and making himself ‘ready’ for God’s purposes – those were life choices that this minister named Brian reaffirmed that day.

 

Though he doesn’t say so in his interview, Brian’s story implicitly declares that even church ministers have purity gaps they need to acknowledge and fill. I may not even be aware of issues that are creeping into my being, until something brings me to a screeching halt. Space has to be filled with something good or the enemy will return and move in and try to take over, even if he’s been chased out previously, as Jesus reminded us in a story about a house being apparently swept clean but remaining empty (Matthew 12:43-45). Brian’s words are a reminder that refining is necessarily an ongoing thing. One could cringe at such a prospect, but the way Brian tells it, this is something that instead becomes ‘my heart’s one desire’. If you’ve tried the enemy’s ways, and found they ultimately become destructive, don’t be discouraged. You’re not beyond hope. Try the God way, surrounding yourself with Him and His people, and you’ll feel the refiner’s fire working on you a bit. Keep coming back for more of this fire.   

 

Watch/hear the song’s story here: Refiner's Fire - How I Wrote it - Brian Doerksen (youtube.com)

 

Read about refining metal here (called metallurgy) Refining (metallurgy) - Wikipedia

 

See information on the picture showing liquid gold being poured here: File:Pouring gold.jpg - Wikimedia Commons …I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

 

Hear Our Praises -- Reuben Morgan

 

He evidently wanted some vigor, much more than a little bit, injected into this one. That is apparent when one watches Reuben Morgan and others call out to God to “Hear Our Praises”, a feeling that’s really not an isolated episode with this songwriter and his partners when they’re on stage at Hillsong in Sydney, Australia (see the flag of the state of New South Wales here; Sydney is its capital). The video of this song in performance (see its link below) indicates its purpose is high energy/celebration, with lots of jumping up and down, as a team winning the championship might do after the last out has been recorded or the game clock has expired. So, there’s not much guesswork as to the song’s theme or intent, is there? While we don’t know what precisely transpired to hasten Reuben’s exertions here, is there really much reason to agonize over that gap in our knowledge? Other high-energy productions by various songwriters likewise do not dwell on a lot of specifics when it comes to praise lifted upward. ‘It just is’, they might say. Praise for the rejoicing He has inspired needs no further exposition.  

 

What Randy Gill says about ‘Shout Hallelujah’ is probably instructive (see this blog’s entry for Dec. 20, 2008) if we want to really speculate about what a songwriter is after with lots of celebratory words, including ‘hallelujah’ that is the most used word in both Gill’s and Morgan’s songs. Singing this word something like 20 times – in one arrangement of what Gill wrote (in 2003)  – or 24 times in Morgan’s song makes the song’s purpose pretty apparent doesn’t it?  Randy used words like ‘freely’ and ‘joyful abandon’ to briefly express to this blogger what he wanted in his hallelujahs, so it’s not a stretch to fathom that Reuben was doing a very similar thing a few years earlier (in or about 1998). Reuben may have also borrowed some potent paraphrases from a bible that he’d opened to reveal how the ancients thought of praises and their breadth. These praises tell of a God whose ‘glory fill(s) the whole earth’, a perspective that Solomon expressed in one of his two psalms (72:19). John the beloved apostle also said something about this God being a ‘light shin(ing) in the darkness’ (John 1:5), certainly worthy of an exclamation by people who may feel like they’ve been rescued from gloom. Reuben adds many more phrases to emphasize that these praises are uninhibited emotionally and unbounded geographically. They’re from the ‘mountain to the valley’, from the ‘heavens to the nations’, and ‘as the water o’er seas’. It’s ‘singing (that) fill(s) the air’ and ‘streets’, and inhabits ‘homes…filled with dancing’. There’s also an appeal for ‘injustice to bow to Jesus’, a notable phrase that suggests Reuben acknowledges even people engaged in extolling the Almighty have difficult, even overwhelming, life issues that drive them into His embrace, including during ‘pray(er)’.  

 

Reuben also reminds us that we all can ‘walk before the cross’, where the ground is level for each of us, as someone once said. That’s the ultimate. Reuben isn’t so lost in celebrating with ‘hallelujahs’ that he’s forgotten the why of our praises. This song might seem pretty elementary in its intent, but there’s that meaty, substantive morsel therein for us who need answers to why I can praise. He’s present to bring me into the light. He draws me so I can feel freedom from punishment at the cross, ironically a place where he was imprisoned, at least from the viewpoint of the scoffers who mocked Him. He beat death for you and me, didn’t stay in the tomb, and awaits us in His home, while His Spirit remains here to move us to keep on keepin’ on. That’s what Reuben’s song is all about.

 

Read information about the songwriter here: Reuben Morgan - Wikipedia

 

See/hear a video of the song by Hillsong and the songwriter here: Hillsong - Hear our praises - Bing video

 

See here for information about the image of the New South Wales, Australia flag and its public domain status: File:Flag of New South Wales.svg - Wikimedia Commons -- This image or other work is of Australian origin and is now in the public domain because its term of copyright has expired. According to the Australian Copyright Council (ACC), ACC Information Sheet G023v19 (Duration of copyright) (January 2019).