OH HOW WE NEED YOU (AMAZING GRACE)

THE ANNUAL - MAY

SCROLL DOWN FOR SONG STORY AND CHORD CHART

TOM READ AND JAMIE THOMSON

Copyright © 2018 Tom Read and Jamie Thomson

Lead Vocal: Tom Read

Produced by: Tom Read and Henry Marsden 

Mixed by: Tom Read

SONG STORY

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one.." (C.S LEWIS)

JAMIE WRITES:

This song came to life at one of our St Aldates church leadership retreats. It was during a season when our church was teaching on revival and in a time of repentance before God, one of our team shared the quote above from C.S. Lewis.

I spent the next few days reflecting on what it means to 'hold our hearts back' and ultimately whether I did that with God. In worship we say and sing many things, but that day I began to see that there were areas in my life that were not in tune with my songs. I realised again that to love is to trust. I realised that when it comes to our faith, it means that even though we live in a world where we often have our hearts broken, we trust that God's love never fails.

This was one of those songs that took a long time to finish. The original verses became another song and Tom and I spent a long time reflecting and trying to write a song that gave voice to corporate confession and repentance. If you're anything like me there is a danger of slipping into the self sustainable life and not spending our days truly relying on Jesus. I started to think what could happen if, we, the church, humbled ourselves and confessed our need of God. In the process of writing this song we have found that there is a beauty in surrender, that it's okay to get to the end of ourselves and that there is great power in admitting that we are unable to make it on our own.

I still remember the day we were trying to finish the song and wrestling with a bridge idea. We had just sung through the last line of the chorus and I started singing out lines from 'Amazing Grace'. It was a real moment as these lines seemed to complete the song perfectly. It provides a culmination and a reminder that at the end of it all, when we have come to the end of ourselves, there is Amazing Grace, Amazing Love and an Amazing God who will carry us.