This song is based on John 15:4-6 (ESV): 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

The journey to this song has taken me through a lot of challenges. It started 10 years ago when I received a few prophetic words about song writing. It took me a while to get started because I don’t consider myself to be a creative person. I am an accountant. I thought, naively, if God wanted me to do this for him that I would get favour.

I worked hard and wrote several songs, recorded them and entered them into a Christian song competition in 2010. It was a pretty frustrating experience for me because I now realize that I was doing it on my own strength. After the competition the feedback came in, and I was so disappointed that I didn’t get the results I was looking for. Their comments were: learn about song structure, your chorus isn’t really a chorus, there are too many clichés, but you have a gift so keep on writing. I took it extremely hard and it took a few years for God to help me heal. During this time, God re-wired my thinking as I realized I made the song writing prophesy an idol. I had to refocus on Him as my inheritance, and put song writing on the shelf.

It is only in these last couple of years that I felt like God was asking me to go back to that shelf and try it out again, but with different expectations and focus. Now, I am doing this because I want to be obedient to him and I want to walk in partnership with Him, the results don’t matter. I just want to see everything in life through His eyes and not the way the world looks at things. Even if I don’t have the greatest voice, song, most memorable lyrics or melodies, even if no one else other than me ever sings these songs, it is a success because I relied on Him.

I pray that this song will also give you courage to do whatever God has asked you to do, even if you don’t feel qualified or gifted to do so. We can’t do anything apart from Him, we are all weak and broken, but He is the one who makes us strong. This song is an invitation for God to walk with us, to do everything with us, and as we do that, as we find ourselves in Him, he will align our thinking, our feelings, our values, our words and actions with His.