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OUR OFFERING A lot of the time when I'm writing I'll have some scriptures in mind. Often, it will be scripture paired with a concept of thought. With this song it was the stories in 1 Samuel 15 and 2 Samuel 24 coupled with a concept my pastor, Rev. Mark Griffin, had preached on recently: Obedience is the highest form of worship. In 1 Sam 15 King Saul is rebuked by Samuel who says “Obedience is better than sacrifices.” In 2 Samuel 24 King David has the opportunity to make sacrifices to God with someone else’s property rather than using his own, but he wouldn’t do it. He says, “I will not offer to God sacrifices that have cost me nothing!” I wanted to write a song that was expensive to sing. We sing a lot of songs, and I’ve written a bunch of songs, that are encouraging but cost me nothing to sing and mean. It was time for me to write an honest song thatt would stare me right back in the eyes and ask a bit more. One that wouldn’t leave me any grey areas to hide in, but would cut right to the meatier issues God wanted of me much more than pleasant melodies. True worship that shows up in the form of surrender, repentance, humility, and obedience. These are costly offerings. They’re harder to mean because they fly in the face of our natural selfish tendencies. They are expensive, but please God the most and yield the greatest return! Whenever we touched this song in the studio it always seemed to leave a
quiet heaviness in the room. Its so simple musically, but there’s just
nothing light about it. When we recorded this song in the studio I knew
God wanted to break me with it. Of course I fought it at first, wanting
to sing it nicely and sweetly rather than half in tears. But I finally
gave in did what He was asking - which was to kneel and sing it. That did
it. And that’s the take you get on the album. Not perfectly done by any
means, but the heart of the song is there. |