Written with Lucy Grimble, this song talks about the song sung by the saints throughout all of history, throughout the entire earth, simultaneously in the heavens and the earth, and finally our own personal response.
Library
Browse our library of songs, artists, themes and more
Distress is a significant part of our experience. As God's people we are often surrounded by hostile enemies, base falsehoods, and injustice. At the outset of these Psalms of Ascent, the pilgrim feels the force of this distressing context and pleads with the Lord for help. With honesty about life’s struggles and a persistent choice to hope in God, these songs of pilgrimage to Jerusalem trace our own journey to the heavenly city.
The pilgrims were bound for Jerusalem: a place for thanks to God, and to gather as God's people to worship Him. It was a festive homecoming! And yet, centuries later when Jesus looked over Jerusalem, he wept because so many of God's people had missed the life they were created for. As God's people today, we too are strangers longing for a better country. Our hope of arrival in God’s heavenly city is to follow Jesus and trust him completely.
I wrote this while sitting on the shores of Lake Malawi back in 1991. It was originally released on my first album Going Home in 1993 on cassette. That recording has not aged well so, when an old friend asked if she could use the original version in a prayer meeting online, I did a quick guitar/vocal demo and then threw it into Suno to produce this version. When I have time, I'd like to go back and produce it myself. But that's for another day.
article
2 months ago
I'm part of a worship songwriting group, the Resound 12 Song Challenge, which encourages writers to create a worship song each month. This song came out of a challenge from June of 2023, whose theme was to write a song around the theme of "refugees". It starts as a kind of lament, acknowledging the terrible situation that many refugees and asylum seekers have come from and are going through, but progresses to fix our eyes on God as the one who protects, delivers and loves us.
I've always loved the carol 'O Come, O Come Emmanuel' but there was a lot in there that I never really understood until adulthood. After following the United Adoration creative Advent guide I was inspired to rewrite it keeping in mind young people, teenagers and those who might be coming to Christmas services as guests. I've aimed to keep the message, story and vibe of the song whilst making it a little easier for people who aren't familiar with the language and history to understand and connect with God through it, touch on things relevant to today and leave enough room for questions to arise.
I'm very thankful to the Resound Worship 12 Song Challenge community who helped me shape and finish this song.
The song is a basic 12-bar blues in C with a twist. But every verse you add another four bars, and another couplet to the lyrics, from a simple refrain all the way to a full-on recollection of the story of the Magi.
In the Psalms, Zion is not merely a name for Jerusalem, but a poetic reference to the place where God dwells, and where his blessing is available to his people. While the blessing is all from God, we do not receive it passively, but reach out for it actively in trust and obedience. Joy and peace begin in the fear of God, following Jesus in all our endeavors. As we trust God to provide, he will restore us in his time: individually, in our families, and in his kingdom to come.
Our lives are full of the labors of home-building: building houses, defending communities, raising children. And yet in all this we are prone to “anxious toil”, an acute awareness that even our best efforts are not sufficient to secure good outcomes. Unless God builds our home, we labor in vain. As Jesus put it: God who cares for each sparrow and lily will surely also guard and help us. In Him we find our deepest assurance of God’s compassionate care for his people.
This song is about the prodigal son and how the fathers arms is our home. I wrote this when wrestling with the idea of home as I left London where I felt so at home and been wrestling with the idea of what home looks like for me. Reading the passage in Luke 15:11-32, I realised my home isn't in a building, an area or a person, it's in the Fathers arms.