“HISTORY” - Philippians 3:13-14, 1 Timothy 1:12-17 - Everyone’s past is filled with imperfections. The scriptures say, “…All have sinned…” But the second we recognize how much we need forgiveness and ask God for His grace to save us, it’s done. Now if you’re anything like me, that seems to be only half the battle. For me, the hardest part is forgiving myself. The mistakes I’ve made try to haunt me, follow me and remind me that I’m no good. The failures of yesterday become the regrets of today; the regrets of today become the discouragement of tomorrow, and before you know it, the future starts looking more and more like the past. The Bible speaks clearly to all of us sinners, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I was the worst of them all (1 Timothy 1:15).” It’s that simple, we’re saved. All that stuff that we used to wear around our hearts like a two-ton weight, that’s all history now. But the story doesn’t end there. God’s love can make history of your past. He forgives and forgets. Now it’s time to move forward into a life of grace. Because, the truth is, God isn’t done with you yet. Your life from here on out, starting with the next breath you breathe, is history in the making! What if we lived every single second ready and willing for God to do something great with our lives? This entire project is for anyone who has ever made a mistake. God’s grace can forgive you. It’s up to you to forgive yourself. The crazy thing is, even as I write this, and even as you read this, history is in the making!

“NEXT THING YOU KNOW” - My dad always told me that the day you find God is a day you always remember. This song is my day, my story— my “thirteen.” I saw Billy Graham preaching on television, and felt this undeniable tugging at my heart. God’s presence was so strong that I couldn’t turn the channel. Well, “next thing you know” I was giving my life to Him, and that was where my journey of faith began. Everyone can have a story. Part of knowing where you’re going is remembering where you’ve come from. If you already know God as your personal Savior, then try to remember the moment that you made a change in your life. Hold on to that memory like a picture in your pocket, because that was a history-making day in your life! If you haven’t made that decision yet, it’s not too late. This is the most important decision anyone can make in life, and it will shape the rest of your history. So, what’s your story?

“ONLY GRACE” - John 8:3-11, 2 Corinthians 12:9 - This song is sort of like “part one” of history in the making. It’s about the battle between guilt and grace—a battle I believe can be won by grace every single time! There’s a story in the book of John about a woman who is caught in the act of adultery and dragged out into the street to be stoned. I love the part where Jesus steps in, the part where Grace interrupts the religious leaders’ plans. He says, “You who are without sin, throw the first stone!” Well, needless to say, there were no stones thrown that day. Instead, Jesus picked the woman up from the dirt and said, “Go and sin no more.” Have you ever felt so guilty about a bad decision that you thought the dirt would never wash away? Have you ever fallen so far that you actually started believing you were unlovable or unforgivable? The scripture says, “My grace is sufficient for you,” and in the battle between guilt and grace, that is Grace’s victorious cry. “There’s only Grace, there’s only Love, there’s only Mercy, and believe me it’s enough!”

“GET AWAY” - Genesis 2:16-17, 1 Thessalonians 5:22 - The Bible is crystal clear when it comes to giving us instructions for how we should handle evil in our world. 1 Thessalonians 5:22 says it all: “Keep away from every kind of evil.” This song was inspired by a conversation with two friends who have both been facing problems in their marriages. They went on to share with me how they have been left to pick up the pieces of broken relationships and shattered worlds. As I was listening, I found myself getting angry. I was angry at evil, because it was becoming obvious that evil doesn’t just want to trip us up, it wants to destroy everything in its path, like a hurricane! When Hurricane Charlie was making its way towards Florida, only a fool would have stayed and tried to survive the storm. That’s the way we need to look at evil. Guarding our hearts and minds from temptation, we have to stand and say, “You will not destroy my life!” The rest of our instructions are simple, “GET AWAY!”

“THE DAY BEFORE YOU” - I got married in May of 2003. I found the best girl in the whole wide world, and in planning for the wedding, she gave me one job to do: prepare the music. No sweat, right? It’s only one of the most important days in my human life! All I have to do is write the best song in history that completely tells the girl of my dreams how I feel about her on our wedding day. Well, needless to say, I was feeling the pressure. I wrote about five different songs, and none of them seemed good enough for the future mother of my children. Then one day, while I was recording Happy, I sat down at the piano during a break and began to write this song. I was thinking about a conversation Emily and I had during our engagement. I remember the moment I realized that I never wanted to be without her, and I said something like, “I wish I’d met you in 5th grade!” She looked at me like I was crazy and replied, “And why is that?” I said, all excited, “Because I could have saved my heart from all the breaking, all the hurting, all the wondering when I’d find ‘the one!’” Then she said something to me that I’ll never forget: “Maybe if we had met any sooner, we would’ve walked right by each other. Maybe God was preparing our hearts for the perfect time that we would meet.” I was humbled by her response, and inspired by that revelation. This song is a reminder that God has planned our history, every second of every day. He knows what the future looks like before we do, and every now and then we get a glimpse of what Heaven will be like.

“I KNOW YOU’RE THERE” - I saw one of those Darwin stickers, (you know, the one of the fish with legs) on the bumper of an old beat-up Jeep Cherokee, and it inspired me. So many people in this world refuse to believe in a God they can’t see. I take one look around this world, take one walk through the maternity ward at the hospital, and there’s not a doubt in my mind that God is real. I spent last fall on tour with Avalon, Mark Schultz, and the most beautiful baby you ever did see (not mine…it was a little ‘Avalonian.’), and after seeing the beauty of creation in its beginning stages, I was convinced that life is so much more than a high-tech accident! Then I look at the state of our world. Airplanes crash into the World Trade Center, taking away countless lives and threatening our freedom. Suddenly, a society filled with skeptics and non-believers calls out to God, the very God that nobody wants to believe in. Well, if God isn’t real, then how come in the face of tragedy, so many voices call out to Him? Part of making history in your life means standing up for what you believe in, even if you know it won’t make you popular. So, when the world tells you you’re crazy, don’t be afraid. Just point to the air…

“THE LAST ONES” - Mark 10:44, Matthew 5:5 - A few years ago, I was traveling around the country as an independent artist and singing my songs for anyone who would listen. One day my travels led me to a concert in Kansas City, and a girl named Taylor. Her dad was the sound engineer for my concert, and I remember seeing her run into the auditorium and sit down in the front row during my sound check. Well, if anyone’s seen me do a sound check you might know that it’s not uncommon for me to make up silly little songs about some random inspiration of the moment. And so I began to write a song about Taylor. Little did I know I was making a new friend that day, and when I jumped off the stage to meet her, she reached out her arms and gave me the best hug in the history of hugs! You see, Taylor has Down Syndrome, and the moment I met her I remember feeling sorry for her. But the more time I spent with her, I could see clearly that God has a special purpose for this little girl. In the last few years she has had a profound impact on my life. This song is inspired by real events in Taylor’s young life, times when she has been an inspiration to everyone around her. As I’ve been working on this concept of History, it overwhelms my heart that history makers come in all shapes and sizes. “And the last shall be the first…”

“LIGHT OF ETERNITY” - I was reading one of those airline magazines during a flight to yet another show, when an article caught my eye. A journalist decided to vacation in this place called Tangier Island. Summer is the peak tourist season for this quaint town, but the reporter decided to check out what life was like in the off-season. He wrote about quiet streets and conversations with locals who were enjoying life at a different pace. One local was quoted as saying, “out here, everything we do is weighed in the light of eternity.” When I read that line, I was humbled to think of how many times I dwell on the temporary, worry about the small, get caught up in the meaningless. What if we considered the eternal value of every decision we made here on earth? What if we held our lives up to the light of eternity? Would we shine? Would it change the way we spend our time down here? That article, in some small way, helped me remember my true motivation in this life, eternity.

“OUT OF TIME” - Matthew 4:18-20 - I love the story of Jesus calling out to Peter and Andrew while they were fishing in their boats. He said, “Come, be my disciples, and I will make you fishers of men!” Now, Jesus wasn’t just calling them to go to lunch together, or maybe a weekend trip. He was calling them to a totally different way of life—a new path—and for some of them it was a complete u-turn! And when he called them, their reply was simple: “…they left their nets at once and went with Him.” Sometimes God calls us away from the comfort we create in our own little worlds. This song is a call to ditch the usual and to step into the unknown. Nobody ever makes history by staying where it’s comfortable. I don’t remember reading stories in my high school history books about boring people who never took chances. Now is your chance to follow your heart and leave your mark on this world. How’s your story gonna read?

“A FEW MORE DAYS” - 2 Peter 3:8 - I wrote this song after watching the morning news one day. Alerts of terrorist attacks, the death toll rising in Iraq, a child kidnapped, a husband suspected of murdering his pregnant wife; I was overwhelmed by what felt like countless tragedies in the world. I turned the television off and opened my Bible. What I found was that God’s sense of time is much different than ours. To Him, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. There it was, right on the page, as big as a billboard in Times Square. I didn’t see just words on the page, I saw HOPE. I saw my future, I saw forever. When the world around me is just too much for me to take, and I find myself longing for Heaven and an eternity of peace, I can look to the sky and see hope, and I know that this world is temporary. When I’m feeling like a child in the back of Dad’s station wagon asking, “Are we there yet?” My Father whispers back, “It could be just a few more days…”