‘25 “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? 27 Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?’ Matthew 6:25-27 (NLT)
Do not worry… I don’t know about you but so often I find that my desire is to live out these words. To live free from worry, free from anxiety, and yet so often that freedom is not what I feel. But the words in this scripture are exactly that… freedom.
My song ‘Still Place’ was written at a time when there seemed to be a lot of reasons to worry, my brother and sister in law were waiting to hear whether a visa would be granted for my brother in law, the future seemed unclear. The worldly reasons to worry, to be anxious seemed high, and yet I was reminded of the beautiful words from Psalm 46:10 ‘Be still and know that I am God’. That truth felt so important to declare over that situation and the words “He is God and He’s on the move’ followed as I began to speak to my soul through this song. When the burden feels heavy on our shoulders and it seems like we are carrying the weight of the world, we can know that is not from God. It is in His power and His strength that we are called to live. He is after all the ‘Waymaker’ He is the one making our way, the weight is not on our shoulders, but rather on our God’s. HIs yoke is easy and His burden is light..
I have throughout my life had a tendency to fall into worry, to forget that I am a child of my Heavenly Father, that my life is of enormous value to Him. I take enormous encouragement from the Psalms, that David would acknowledge where he was at but speak to his own soul, bringing it into line with Gods truth.
‘Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.’ Psalm 43:5 (NIV)
‘Still Place’ is a song of myself speaking to my soul, telling it to come into alignment with what I know to be true, a song to be declared over the lives of others. We seem to be at a time when anxiety is prevelant in so many, yet we know that in His presence these things fade away. I pray that this song brings people into a place of stillness and trust in God similar to a great song that came before it…
‘Fix your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of the world will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace’
by Jamie Pritchard