Worship-Review.com
“Yes You Have” by Jack Mooring, Leeland Mooring, and Matt Bronleewe
Yes You Have
By Jack Mooring, Leeland Mooring, and Matt Bronleewe
CCLI# - 4702708
Reviewed by Tom Arthur
tom[at]saraharthur[dot]com
Lyrics
Leeland
Sample Music
My Space (Full Song)
Amazon
My wife and I recently attended a large fast-growing suburban church in Indianapolis. It meets in a building that used to be a big electronics box-store that has long been out of business. This church appears aiming to be a seeker church. You get that feel the moment you walk in; even before you walk in. It’s an unusual meeting place for church, located among one long strip plaza of shops and restaurants. People greet you before you even get to the door. Then you’re greeted several more times before you get to the “sanctuary” (I put “sanctuary” in quotes because we had a lively discussion after church with those who took us about whether this was a “sanctuary” or not). The church had no visible signs that would mark it as Christian. No communion table. No pulpit. No cross or any other Christian symbol. Although to the one looking closely, there was a barely noticeable immersion baptismal tank off to the side of the stage. The room could have simply been a great venue for whatever band was traveling through Indy. The sound system was top notch. The media was flawless. No windows allowed the lighting to be controlled perfectly. It was a beautifully orchestrated room. Having come most recently from a seminary setting that highly valued more liturgical forms of worship, I was a little out of sorts as worship began. Was I about to worship, or was I about to watch a show?
After some introductory comments which began with the simple but theologically lacking words “Good morning”, (Worship leaders, always consider carefully the first words out of your mouth to begin worship. They need not be too “churchy” sounding given your context, but surely something with a bit more depth and breadth than “good morning” is appropriate for the beginning of worship!) the worship leader and band began singing what was for me a completely unfamiliar song, Yes You Have. Amidst what seemed up to this point like a worship service lacking something considerable came a song that grasped fully both my biblical and theological imagination. What a surprise it was and what a joy it was to find this gem!
Yes You Have dives right into praising the greatness of God. Here we find a common theme throughout all of scripture but especially the psalms: the creation sings the praises of God. One psalm close to the foreground of this verse is certainly Psalm 148, and a unique call to praise takes place in Psalm 148. All of creation, both the animate creation (beasts and angels, humans and peoples) and the inanimate (tree and stone, wind, star, and sky) are commanded to sing God’s praise. Interestingly enough, this song focuses entirely on the inanimate creation. What a wonderful correction for so many praise songs that focus only on the animate flesh. For God’s creation sings God’s praises not just because we, flesh and bone, recognize their wordless praise (Psalm 19) and provide the words that they lack (Romans 1), but because in creation God recognizes the fingerprints of the Son, the Word through whom all things were created (John 1), and shares in the overflowing love of the Son for the Father in the act of creation. Creation praises God the Father because God the Father recognizes in creation the love of God the Son. And so the greatness of God expands as creation sings God’s praise in Yes You Have.
Following the first verse in the chorus comes a startling word, stolen. Stolen? Does God steal? And what happens when God steals one’s heart? My mind immediately went to Jeremiah’s experience with God: “You have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed” (20:7a). What at first seems like a statement of love from Jeremiah has an underbelly when contemplated and read further. The verses which follow show the frustration Jeremiah has with God in God’s enticement: “I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me” (20:7b). And even more so, Jeremiah finds that if he tries to shut this word of the LORD up and not proclaim it, “Then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (20:9). When God steals the heart of the prophets, the word of the LORD is sure to be like an inward burning that one carries along within oneself. It reminds me of the language sometimes used to describe God’s call as a “burden” placed upon the heart.
This same theme comes up again later in the bridge of Yes You Have where Psalm 139 is artfully alluded to. This psalm is usually considered a poem describing the intimacy of God’s presence, but the NLT brings out well the double-edged nature of God’s omnipresence when it says, “I can never escape from your spirit! I can never get away from your presence!” (139:7). God isn’t always welcome. If we are really honest, we’d rather that God not be near us all the time. Maybe this is why God is sometimes referred to as the “hound of heaven.” Once the hound has our scent, it’s only a matter of time before we are enticed and overpowered, stolen by the ever present grace of God.
I don’t know that the authors of this song ever considered the double-edged nature of the lyrics of this song, but they are certainly there in the biblical account. God’s presence is not always a welcome one. As Isaiah says, “The great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel” (Book of Common Prayer translation, 12:6). Here’s the good news: God is present. Here’s the bad news: God is holy. This ought to make us at the least fear God and at the most revere God.
Now all of this overpowering, enticing and stealing might be just a little too much if it were not for one more essential theme of this song, the work of God in Jesus freeing us from our sin. We see this theme both in the chorus and verse two. Here I especially like the references to both “stains” and “chains” or “forgiveness” and “liberty.” Too often our narration of what God is doing in Jesus only focuses on issues of purity and debt. But in this song there is also a focus on real freedom today. The chains and disease that our sins are right now every day are broken and healed in the work of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are brought ever more fully into the new life that is in Christ, the new identity that we have as we are empowered to follow faithfully Jesus Christ and his way by being his disciple.
Conclusion: Highly Recommended
Perhaps in a worship setting like this one where worship primarily consists of singing and preaching, the music takes on a much more significant role liturgically and carries quite a bit more of the theological weight that the formal written liturgy carries in other settings. And while the worship context in which I first heard this song was lacking in some ways (although this is not to say that it was not also more faithful worship in other ways), the theological and biblical power of this song helped balance out some of those shortcomings and carry some of the liturgical weight of the worship service. I can only imagine that it will do so in whatever worship context it is sung.
- Copyright 2010 worship-review.com. All Rights Reserved.
- Back To Top
- Home
Leave a Comment-