Palm Sunday Week 2018 - Song Story: "Right There"

About 20 years ago, there happened to be some moments of great pain and difficulty for some of the closest people to my wife Rhonda and I.  There were no easy answers to the situation and really no words that could be said that would make things better.  The wounds and the sorrow of the moment could only be healed by the One who is "the light and life of every soul and my only source of hope." (A Guide To Prayer, Page 136).  But even those words could be considered empty if we don't understand the lengths that the Giver of Light went through to heal the relationship between God and humanity.  Palm Sunday begins what we know as Holy Week.  In this week Jesus would feel and suffer every possible human emotion.  

Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem as the loved, conquering hero.  He is cheered and celebrated greater than any Super Bowl winning quarterback or rock star.  Shouts of "Hosanna" (glory, save us, hallelujah, praise the Lord) ring out!  But as tends to happen in this world, people who are bringing great systemic change to the world (what what greater change could there ever be) are torn down by those that want to keep power, keep things the way they are, or simply just don't understand what they are doing.  And so in the next seven days, Jesus goes from the highest of highs, to quiet time with his closest friends (eating a meal with expressions of love and betrayal), to cries and prayers of anguish and loneliness in the garden.  Next would come arrest, false accusations, public scorn and rejection, and death on the cross.  We know what happens on the third day but we will leave that for next week.  

The point of it all is that this is the plan that God put into place from the beginning of time.  The Father, Son and Holy Spirit reintroduces humanity to the love of the creator in a way that says, "I understand, I am with you, I am not distant, I will never leave you, I am right there."  


For our friends, in a moment of prayer and playing along with my guitar, this song "Right There" came out of a "thin place" with God.  There was this great sense that I was to give this song to them as a reminder that, in the midst of ups and downs, moments of feeling major swings from a rock of stability to unstable shaking ground, God is right there.  It's been used in many different ways through many different seasons of our church.  It has been sung much better by different people throughout the years, but for now it is a mix down of live tracks that we recorded years ago, and a demo lead vocal that I have recently recorded.  I hope that in seasons of wounds and healing, sorrows and joys that you are reminded God is Right There!


Click on the link below to get to the song "Right There" on SoundCloud

Free download: Right There