ChristianDance

Trials may come, but God is not finished. “This Too Shall Pass” by Chuks Morah started as a country beat from a Nashville producer. He sped it up, added a fiddle, swapped the drums for hand claps, and stacked his vocals until the chorus sounds like a whole church singing. The sound is bright. The message is tender. Chuks wrote it for the brokenhearted, and for anyone who is sitting in a hospital corridor waiting for news. The phrase “this too shall pass” is credited to King Solomon, and Abraham Lincoln carried it into the darkest days of the American Civil War. Chuks gives it a firmer footing: “Trials may come, I will not be afraid.” How do you sing that when your heart is breaking? James (the half-brother of Jesus) offers a starting place. He writes, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” (James 1:2–3). Joy here isn’t a forced smile. It is the quiet confidence that nothing you face is...

Has darkness ever felt like the final word? Three days after Presence Music vocalist Leah Monson lost her brother, she helped to write a Christmas song. Heartbreak doesn’t usually produce carols. This one did, and Presence Music recorded it together with Billboard-charting artist Joel Vaughn. “The Darkness Didn’t Know” retells Bethlehem from the darkness’s point of view. A newborn’s cry “pierced the silent night,” and the darkness “could not comprehend” it. Why would shepherds kneel and angels sing over “a babe so tender and mild” ? Darkness saw a helpless infant. It missed the King on his “manger throne.” Darkness kept missing Him. It never saw a Son who would “lay aside his royal crown” and “trade it for a cross.” It never imagined a “stone cold grave” becoming the place where “life would shine its light.” The apostle John captured the whole story in a single sentence: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). Not then, not now, not ev...

Who told you that you can’t start over? Lettie Law has watched Jesus change lives. People who once felt like nobodies now walk with purpose, and she counts herself among them. Her song, “I Have A New Life”, grew out of that gratitude and ends with a joyful “Alleluia.” When did you last feel stuck? Did you believe that you could start over? Lettie did, because she met Someone who made it possible. “He gave me new life and showed me new way,” she sings. Her message sounds like a neighbor sharing good news over the fence, not like a lecture from a pulpit. Notice what she credits. Lettie never claims she earned this life or found the road alone. “Jesus gave it unto me.” You can’t achieve a gift, only receive it. Let that lighten your shoulders today. The apostle Paul describes the same gift: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Your past failures no longer write your name. The label you wore yes...

What if heaven’s greatest gift was meant for you? Long before the first sunrise, God had a plan with your name on it. Gresha Schuilling begins her song, “A Son Is Given”, right there: “Before time began // Our redemption was planned.” Centuries rolled by. Prophets spoke, kingdoms rose and fell, and His promise stands firm. “Though generations passed, God’s Word would still stand.” Have you ever waited so long for an answer that you stopped listening for it? Israel knew that same pain. Then a child arrived. The prophet Isaiah had seen this coming: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6, ESV). The chorus of this song sings those names right back to Him. Each of His names meets a need. Confused? He counsels. Weak? He is mighty. Anxious? He is your peace. Isaiah also wrote of a “great light” breaking into deep darkness (...

Faith unlocks every promise God has made. A song can sit forgotten in an old email folder for years and still be ready to sing. That’s what happened with “I Believe It”. Israel Ojulari wrote it more than fifteen years ago for a women’s convention centred on fulfilling your God-given destiny. A local choir sang it first. The manuscript then went missing, until a search through old emails brought it back. Some promises wait quietly for us to come looking. “I will no longer linger on this shore of doubt,” Ojulari sings. That sounds like a decision, not a mood, a decision that requires follow-through: “I’ll arise and go in, taking what is mine.” Staying on the shore can feel safe, but crossing over requires courage. What’s causing you to linger? Maybe it’s a prayer you stopped praying, a calling you pushed to the background, or a door that you assumed was shut. Name it, share it with God, and then take one step toward it. Scripture gives that step a firm place to land: “Let us hold fast ...