A few years a ago I wrote this song and have never recorded it. I played it some just after it was finished, but I haven’t touched it for at least two years. Then, about a week ago I was inspired to play it during a prayer and worship service. We were thanking God for some of His wonderful characteristics, and God brought this song to my mind. One of the reasons that I really like it is because it’s the only worship song that I know of that uses the words ‘omnipotent’, ‘immutable’, AND ‘transcendent’ … all in ONE song!
I remember when I first came up with the chorus of this song. It was after walking my daughter to pre-school, and I was on my way home. I was just enjoying the time with Jesus, and started singing, “You’re mighty, righteous, in control. Wonderful, powerful.” The melody was just the same then, as it is now. I recorded the melody when I got home, and later on started working on the chords. But even though the melody was stuck in my head for a couple of weeks, I could not come up with chords that I really liked. The next month a group of about eight song writers from around the country met in Jacksonville, FL to write for a few days. I brought the idea up in one of our sessions, and as a group we were able to spark inspiration for the rest of the song. It was really fun to write in a group setting, and it showed me how sometimes you really need to bounce an idea off of someone else in order to finish it. For whatever reason, I just did not have what I needed to finish this song … I needed some brothers. Thanks to Kevin Singleton, Sterling Brown, Brent Garrard, Bill Hackworth, Chris Jenson, & Gino Mingo for help on this one.
Maybe there is a lesson in there about ‘flying solo’. It’s good to get input from others, and realize that God often doesn’t give us what we need to finish things on our own; we need others. In fact, He almost always wants us to ‘do life’ with other people. I don’t think we are intended to be loaners.
The last section of the song says …
You Are Omnipotent, All Powerful You Are
You Are Immutable, Unchangeable You Are
You Are Transcendent, Magnificent You Are
You Are, You Are, You Are, Intimate
The idea there was to use those big words that we don’t hear very often, but to give a simple definition of each of them at the same time. It’s just a one word definition, so it’s not complete, but it should help us remember what it is we are saying. … And it’s still true. So, ‘omnipotent’ means ‘all powerful, ‘immutable’ means ‘unchangeable’, and ‘transcendent’ means ‘magnificent’. All of those words are such huge, ‘high above us’ concepts. But God is also so close to us, and desiring to walk with us in such intimacy. So it ends with, ‘You are … Intimate’.
So, here you have a live recording that was made with a little area mic after having not practiced the song for about 2 years. There … that’s my disclaimer ☺ But it does feel good to share a song with you.
‘You Are’
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