With Everything

This song always takes me by surprise.  Initially, its melody did not stand out to my ears. .  I was about 20-listens into it before I could hum it without the song actually blaring through my iPhone.  There can be a trade off between the lush and the hook-laden.  Joel Houston is the master of flipping that coin; heads = amazing inspiring stadium anthem/tales = amazing intimate stadium anthem.  Yet, for all of its musical subtlety, the lyrics blast a two-pronged attack on self.  Consider the tag from which the song takes its name: With everything, with everything we will shout for Your glory.  With everything, with everything, we will shout for Your praise. 

The earth is the Lord’s and everything that is in it belongs to him.  And so the song reminds us to lose our too-often-promoted sense of self and to join with everything in recognizing the One.  Paradoxically, it is with everything in that denied self that we cry out as individuals, fearfully and wonderfully made to raise a unique voice to our Friend, our King, our God.  It is in that paradox that our lives make sense.  It is in that paradox that our lives make worship.  It is in that paradox that I cannot stop listening to this song.

How do you see that paradox playing out in your own life? 

Is there too much focus on one or the other in your personal, or our corporate worship?

-Caleb


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