Song By Song:

I Believe in Jesus - Early on in our marriage, my wife and I lived in a very trendy, eclectic part of Minneapolis known as Uptown. I loved it there. This neighborhood was filled with all kinds of different people with all kinds of wild beliefs, very few of which could be called conservative. Many of the people around us wore their hostility toward the traditional idea of God on their sleeve. Needless to say, I saw some pretty intense bumper stickers around the neighborhood. It made wonder why people were so hostile toward God. I came to the conclusion that people who are hostile toward God are that way because they simply have never known the love of Jesus. I’ve been so fortunate to be connected with the love of Jesus for my entire life. This song is a response to the environment that my wife and I were living in. It was birthed out of a desire for the knowledge of Jesus to flood the earth. “For the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab. 2:14)

The Measure of His Love - One of my sister’s close friends was engaged to be married, and my sister was honored to be asked to be a bridesmaid along with the groom’s three younger sisters. On the way to the wedding rehearsal, all three of the groom’s younger sisters were killed in a car accident. Nobody knew what to do. The family, and everyone around them, was devastated. The questions “Why?” and “how could God?” resonated in all of our minds and hearts. I was privileged to watch the parents of the three girls respond to what had happened to them. I saw the news footage of the mother speaking at the funeral. She told stories of God’s faithfulness, and she spoke of her firm knowledge that her daughters were in a better place. Hundreds gave their hearts to Jesus at that funeral, and God turned this tragedy into a thing of beauty. Often we find the fullness of God’s love at the end of our rope. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Long Arm of Love - I grew up in a fairly legalistic environment. Subconsciously, I developed the mentality that my good standing with God was based on my performance as a “good Christian.” How good it’s been to come the realization that this couldn’t be farther from the truth! I have heard Jesus whisper in my ear “my grace is sufficient for you,” and I believe Him. “And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.” (Romans 11:6)

New Every Morning - I had a close friend who was going through the pain of divorce. He was a believer. He had felt the joy of being used by God throughout his life in many different ways, and he was under the impression that what was happening to him would keep him from knowing that joy ever again. I feel passionately that the opposite is true. If we allow Him, God has the uncanny tendency to turn our most painful situations into our greatest strengths. He never runs out of love. “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:23)

Psalm 23 - A few days after 9/11, I was in my college apartment watching one of the many documentaries about Osama Bin Laden that were being aired at that time. I remember the narrator of the program describing the way Osama grew up in a very rigid, religious family. He was taught that to give his life for the cause of his beliefs was the most honorable thing that he could ever accomplish. I was captivated by the story, mostly because I was taught the same thing and was raised in a religious environment myself. I remember being overtaken by fear when I posed this question to myself: “What makes him wrong and me right?” Are my beliefs just a product of the religious culture that I was raised in, or are they really true? It rattled me pretty severely. After wrestling with these kinds of questions, I found myself coming back to the person of Jesus Christ. The truth is, there has never been anybody like Him, nor will there ever be. He is the foundation of our faith. On the other side of the hard questions, I found the irrevocable truth that there is a loving God. I remember picking up my guitar that night and working out the lyrics and chords to this song through my tears. King David’s words were a great comfort to me.

When It Comes to You - I’m convinced that at times God chooses to be illusive for our good. I think it’s a normal part of the believer’s life. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that I get freaked out by people who say they have never gone through a “desert experience” with God. Somehow, in God’s logic, He knows that His seeming absence makes our faith grow, and we end up stronger on the other side of the desert than we were before. He confounds the wisest of us. Nobody has ever had a corner on the market when it comes to understanding the ways of God. “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

So Glad - Some of the best advice I’ve ever received was that I should never take myself too seriously. I’m a perfectionist by nature, and I’m really hard on myself. I’ve been known to dig myself into a hole or two, and then get totally steamed for digging the hole in the first place. But I think it’s healthy to know your limits and to be able to have a good laugh at your own expense every once and awhile.

Waiting for You - My wife and I had a long distance dating relationship. There came a point in time when we both were faced with the question, “Is this really worth it?” When you don’t live in the same country as your significant other, that question tends to creep up sooner than if you did. Plus, we’d both had our hearts broken before, and we were both afraid it would happen again. But the tug on our hearts toward each other was so strong that we couldn’t ignore it. We ultimately decided that what we discovered between us was worth waiting for, and we were rewarded with the joy of being able to spend the rest of our lives together. Not a bad deal… for me anyway. I learned a lot through the process of waiting. I think there are people all over the world who have had their hearts broken by all kinds of different things: a relationship gone bad, a business opportunity that went south, a betrayal of trust. These things leave people jaded and unwilling to put their trust in anything ever again. It’s a human response. God makes bold promises to us with statements like “I’ll never leave you or forsake you,” and “there’s a friend that sticks closer than a brother.” our natural response is to reject Him on the basis of our previous history. But if we allow it to, faith can live inside of us. We can believe He is who He says He is and he can rewrite our history.

Psalm 121 - This is one of my favorite passages of Scripture because of the promises that God makes in it. It changes my outlook on life when I can wake up in the morning and know that through the night God has been watching over me. It gives me confidence to take steps of faith when I know that God has already said He won’t let my foot slip. Fear can cripple a person. That’s why it’s good to sing about the promises of God at the top of your lungs every once in awhile.

Man of Sorrows - I wrote this song on Easter Sunday morning about two years ago while visiting my parents in Chicago. At my parents’ house there’s a room with a beautiful black, Yamaha grand piano in it. It’s my favorite piano. Over the piano hangs a painting of the face of Christ done in crimson hues. His face is bruised and beaten, and on His head is a crown of thorns embossed in gold. It’s a striking image. I remember walking down the stairs that morning with the weight of what Easter meant on my mind. I was confronted with that painting when I got to the bottom of the stairs. There was something in the room that I wanted to capture and archive for myself so that I would never forget the meaning of what Christ did for me. Out of that experience came this hymn.

Give My Life Away - The example that Jesus gave by the way He lived and died was, and continues to be, revolutionary. It flies in the face of what would come to us apart from him. Left on our own, we are bent on pleasing ourselves. His only concern was pleasing His father. He taught us that real life is only found when we spend our lives for His sake. His example challenges me everyday to counter what comes naturally, so that His kingdom can be advanced through the character of Christ in me. “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)