George Herbert’s The Prayer (I)

The most powerful tool in your songwriting arsenal is also the most ordinary. You've already used it today. In this series, we're going to take something instinctive and make it intentional — and it's going to change the way you write.

There's a songwriting tool so simple and ordinary that most of us walk right past it. It's been in the songs you love your whole life — you just haven't noticed it yet. Once you do, you'll start hearing it everywhere. And the best part? You already have everything you need to use it.

In 1563, a traveller made a feast from a stone. What he really did was show the villagers what they already had. It's the oldest trick in the book, and it might be the most useful thing a songwriter can learn.

What made two spies courageous when ten were terrified? They knew God delighted in them. That revelation — that you are loved, that God is so for you it fills him with delight — is the deepest source of courage there is. Let it fill you to overflowing, and song it out.

Isn't it crazy how God chose you? He picks the unlikely, the broken, the least—jars of clay, to shine with his treasure. Your salvation story is too crazy, too wild, too full of wonder and grace to keep inside. Let the joy of your salvation burst out in song as an overflow of worship.

Isn't it crazy how God chose you? He picks the unlikely, the broken, the least—jars of clay, to shine with his treasure. Your salvation story is too crazy, too wild, too full of wonder and grace to keep inside. Let the joy of your salvation burst out in song as an overflow of worship.

How boundlessly he loves us," said Luther. At the cross, we see God's love in every dimension—from its abundance to its zenith, the pain and the power, the weeping to the wonder. When we behold His endless love at Calvary, how can worship songs not overflow? Let it pour out in art, in words, in melody, in music, in song.

Who could possibly need to be teachable? Yet Jesus "learned obedience" and "grew in wisdom" while working as a carpenter for eighteen years. When we see the galaxy-maker bending over a workbench in Nazareth, calloused hands shaping wood—how can our hearts not overflow with songs to the One who humbled Himself so completely?

To live overflowing in worship and song, think on the incarnation: Jesus, the Son of God, fully divine, living in eternal joy and love, left his throne of glory to become a baby lying in a manger, dependent on his mother's milk, learning to crawl and walk—oh, what humility our God shows! How much he loves us!

When the Old Testament writers caught even a glimpse of the coming Messiah, prose wasn't enough. They needed poetry. They needed song.

We have so much more—the Bible, the gospels, dripping with the revelation of God's love story. We can write in the the overflow of this vision!

In a worship industry full of distractions—followers, validation, performance—we must anchor ourselves in Christ alone, the King who authors and perfects our faith and leads us in song.

My favourite books of 2025!

to help you grow in three ways: strength, depth, and transformation.

to help you grow in three ways: strength, depth, and transformation.

to help you grow in three ways: strength, depth, and transformation.

to help you grow in three ways: strength, depth, and transformation.

to help you grow in three ways: strength, depth, and transformation.

to help you grow in three ways: strength, depth, and transformation.

to help you grow in three ways: strength, depth, and transformation.