This might be my favorite song lyrically on the whole album. It has taken on several different faces during the recording process. This song originally was a song called Presence with a different melody and completely different lyrics. We got to the finish of the music and I ultimately was like “man this music is better than these words”. I went back to the drawing board and the song took a turn that I hadn’t expected but loved. The first verse says a lot about the place of our fear in light of who God is.

“Wrestle down my fear when it has overtaken
When my vision’s got so cloudy I can’t see
I forget You stitched my enemies together
You finger on their fray is all I need”

Man if I can live with the realization that God holds his finger on the fray of my enemies that changes how we address the giants in our lives. He is larger than our adversaries

I think the this song is the apex of the album where it says “You are where brokenness and beauty are the same” Jesus on the cross took on all of our brokenness in the largest act of beauty that could ever be imagined.

Let this song be a reminder of the massive power and glory of God.

Our lives are a continuation of this story of the glory of God We are living in the “because of Jesus” time In our victory and hardship our story sings and bleeds the story of God’s glory We are saved unto a next chapter We are saved unto a “life left to go” I know that I can get so wrapped up in thinking that my story is just so normal, but God has written all of our stories to intersect with His and then the beauty of that intersection, no matter how seemingly small it is, will have a profound effect on someone else’s life at the perfect moment that God is in control of.

Rise up is the third song on the AHX album If You Weren’t Here. This song really started as a journal entry when I was writing out a prayer. If you are like me you can sometimes have your mind wander when you are praying so I had gotten in the habit of writing out my prayers.

This prayer is really asking God to show himself in all of these areas of my life. I had gotten to a place where I’ve been a believer for a long long time and parts of my walk had become just average. I was longing for the closeness of God, that presence to start messing up the norm.

The second movement of the song is the chorus which is just an honest confession inside my longing that God doesn’t shrink back or shy away from us. “You don’t fall away, Your love doesn’t change for me.”
He can’t love me anymore and He couldn’t love me any less” because it’s perfect as is.

The third movement of the song is the bridge that just says “O I believe You, believe You when you say”
This past Sunday during the message our teaching pastor Yancey said this one thing, “It’s not that I need to know anything knew but rather that I need to deeply believe what I already know.” That really ties exactly into what this bridge is saying. God calls his people to confession many times throughout Bible. I love when Jesus was with his disciples and he asked them “Who do you say that I am?”

Our answer to that shown not just in our words but in our lives is what this song is really about. We come to the end of this and just say AMEN.

Rise Up Official Lyric Video

Our Song is Grace is the second song on the new album “If You Weren’t Here”. This song, unlike most of the other tracks on the album, has already had some life in our church. We’ve been singing this song for the past year and a half and it’s been great to see how it has become an anthem for us.

Music is a univeral language that speaks to everyone and grace is the universal glue that holds the redeemed people of God into a unique and unifying relationship. To have a song that captializes on that likeness, to me, helps the church have a voice that feels like home. Grace is a word that we use so often also that giving some other space around it in a different light will hopefully allow the us to let it just sink in in a different way.

The album is finally out. In the next few weeks I will walk through the album song by song. Can’t wait to share the deeper levels of this project with you guys.

Click here to buy album on iTunes