I met a friend for dinner last week after work one night, and as I was driving up Menaul towards the mountains, I decided I had listened to the CD in the CD player enough for the last two weeks and I flipped over to the FM channels. I fast-forwarded through a few stations when what I heard from each either didn’t grab me, or grabbed me, and then lost me quickly. As I neared my destination, I landed on a station that was offering contemporary gospel music, and I quickly noticed the song playing, in part because the music was soothing and I had not heard it before, but moreso because of the artist’s voice. I knew that voice.

As I listened and my brain chewed on the music, and on the familiarity of the voice, it clicked, and I thought “That has got to be her.”

I arrived at the restaurant and parked, and my brief dalliance with the song ended, but I remembered a phrase from the chorus which would make it easy to look up, and then I met my friend.

“Thy Will”.

The song also had caught my attention because as I briefly listened to a portion of the lyrics, I also thought, Wow- I needed to hear this. This is me.

“I’m so confused
I know I heard you loud and clear
So, I followed through
Somehow I ended up here…”

When I got home later, I remembered the song and the chorus, and I looked them up on Google, and sure enough, the singer was her.

Hillary Scott, the female voice of Lady Antebellum, the country group which has sold over 18 million albums worldwide.

It turns out that during a break from Lady A, Hillary and her mom (country artist Linda Davis) and her dad and her sister recorded a gospel album which released in July, 2016.

From that album, a song called “Thy Will” went into heavy rotation on Christian radio stations.

So that I could hear it a year and some later.

And be challenged to get my heart right.

I’ve been in a slide the last few years, and in a large part, it’s occurred because I haven’t dealt the best with disappointments.

Because I’ve not really gone to Him with everything.

Or anything.

Because I have been bitter.

“When I try to pray
All I’ve got is hurt…”

I appreciated this song right away because its honest lyrics do so well at conveying the struggle that lies in thinking you have tried to live listening and following Him, and yet feeling broken or abandoned because, despite your loyalty, things do not seem to work out or go awry in your life.

“It’s hard to count it all joy
Distracted by the noise
Just trying to make sense
Of all your promises…”

We cannot understand everything that happens. Rain falls on us all. Sometime, you will think you are in a dead end, and all is futile, or pain upon pain mounts, and it doesn’t make sense.

“Trust me”, He asks of us.

Trust Him, Jesus asks, despite what things look like.

Because really, at question when I do not trust Him as a believer is my confidence in His goodness. If I was absolutely persuaded about how good God is, I would question so little about what happens in my life. I would live knowing He is always with me, and that He will always have my back, despite circumstances.

And easily say, “Thy will be done.”

The difference between becoming bitter and becoming better lies in the necessary act of surrender and acceptance.

“When I try to pray
All I’ve got is hurt
and these four words

Thy will be done
Thy will be done
Thy will be done”

In case you hadn’t heard it but would like to, here it is:

I can appreciate this song for its honest questioning, but I have to say, I also really like it because the questioning does not keep it from leaping forward yet in faith. Because that is what He says we have to do when it is all cloudy and murky and raw and uncomfortable. Trust Him.

“Thy will be done.”

You might not always understand what is happening and why it happened, He says, but I am still here with you in your pain and I will always love you.

I so easily can worship that Lord.

“Sometimes I gotta stop
Remember that you’re God
And I am not”

Nice job, Hillary and fam. Thank you for the reminder- and the nudge for faith in a good God.

—

POSTSCRIPT: Naturally, I later come to fine out this song won a Grammy for “Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song” in February of this year. Yeah- I am a little out of touch with contemporary culture. That’s okay. At least I know I can recognize a really good song, I guess.