There are a few giants when it comes to the Contemporary Christian music world. Bands like Elevation Worship, Hillsong and all its variants, and Bethel Music pretty much own the worship music industry in my experience. Folks like Chris Tomlin, TobyMac, Lauren Daigle, and Jeremy Camp run the radio world with their musical brilliance.
But on top of all these groups, there stand a few lyrical giants, including Matthew West, who I have mentioned before as being a master of the rhythmic word. But another very popular group does a fantastic job of making music that can be dissected spectacularly, and that is Casting Crowns.
(What a fancy introduction I’ve written just so I could hype up one of the earliest Casting Crowns songs written all because I love the absolute weight behind the seeming simplicity of some of the lyrics.)
“Who Am I” was, indeed, one of the earliest songs performed by Casting Crowns, written by member Mark Hall. When I talk about lyrical genius, I’m really not stretching the truth. There is so much emotion conveyed by the words in this song, and many of their songs, along with a startling complexity if we really break down what’s going on behind all the words.
While what I really want to talk about is the pre-chorus, we’ll start from the top. Mark Hall stated that the emotion behind this song stemmed partially from this question: “Who am I to think that I can just call up to God whenever I want, from the middle of nowhere, and expect Him to hear me?”
Speaking for myself, I never really had this thought, but I also grew up in church being taught that God loves me and wants to hear from me, but I try to imagine this now: what is it like to not know that God cares for you so much that He wants to hear from you, and indeed, seeks you out when you’re in the middle of nowhere? I think it’s integral to get the background of this song to truly understand where the lyrics come from.
Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to feel my hurt?
Who am I, that the bright and morning star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever-wandering heart?
To one who doesn’t know our God, these questions seem incredibly valid, but even to those who do know our God, doubt sometimes causes us to feel this way. Because, really, who are we to receive such special care from an infinite being who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent? How does He even notice us? To Him, we are smaller than ants.
But the great part of these lyrics is that they ask these questions without ever denying the intrinsic truth behind the actions the Lord takes. We know from the Bible that He forms us in our mother’s womb; He knows the number of hairs on our head. We know that He felt our hurt as Jesus who came and felt not only all our hurt, but all the eternal hurt that we should feel from the consequences of sin.
We know that we have a God who chooses to be the lamp to our feet and light for our path not because we follow the path well, but in spite of our inability to walk in a straight line.
But we know what God has done and continues to do for us. That subject fills a majority of the time spent teaching, preaching, and proselytizing. But what we oh so rarely consider, beyond the surface truth of being sinners who are either relishing sin or saved from it, is who we are in comparison to God. Really: who are we in comparison to omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence? With our lifespans of 85 years and our meager strength and will that isn’t even capable of consistently choosing to do what is right, who are we?
I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
A vapor in the wind
Let’s not shy away from this, because it’s incredibly important in helping us realize just how gracious our God is. These are things that, to our perspective, pass by quickly. A flower can be bright and blooming one day and ripped to shreds by a strong wind or swept away by floods the very next day. It is so weak. A wave peeks out from the endless mass of the ocean, looking separated, only to be tossed back down into the frothing waters of the sea. It is important, distinct, for all of a second before it no longer matters. A vapor, a wisp, of material in the wind is tossed about, unable to control itself. It cannot decide where it goes or stays; it just gets whisked by wherever the wind takes it.
If that’s how we see these things, how much less could our infinite God see us as? We could go to sleep healthy and never wake up. We could seem like we’re important to this world for a moment, but how much do we matter in the grand scheme of things, in even just the timeline of humanity on Earth? 85 years isn’t a lot compared to roughly 6,000. With all the conflicting forces bouncing us around in this world, how much power do we truly have to get where we want to go?
Who am I, that the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love
And watch me rise again?
Who am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me?
But out of all the dreariness, the tone starts to change. Because if you know our God, you know that even though we should be insignificant, we aren’t. Even though we mess up, sometimes, maybe often, more than we get it right, our God loves us. Our God picks us up from where the winds ripped us apart and pieces us back together. Our God sees every last wave and counts it as important to the ocean. Our God calms the wind and guides us through the breezes to where we belong.
The one with the power to calm raging oceans and stormy gales uses his mighty power to quell the tiny whirlwinds that go off in our hearts as we struggle through this life.
Why? Such a simple question with an incredibly simple answer that is complicated by our human nature. It’s not because of who we are or anything we could do. But because of the one we belong to.
Still you hear me when I'm calling
Lord, you catch me when I'm falling
And you've told me who I am
I am yours
Even though we are tiny and insignificant, our God directs His ears towards us. He’s always listening, always watching, always waiting. To hear and speak when we call out to Him. To hold us by the hand when we stumble. To pick us up when we fall. To carry us when we are too weak. Because we are not left out here on our own. We are His.
But again, why? Why does the Almighty God choose to call us His own? Here’s the lyrics I really wanted to talk about to answer that question:
Not because of who I am
But because of what you've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who you are
Four lines that seem so simple at first glance reveal myriad truths about who we are, why God claims us as His, and why He continues to fight for us. Literally, these four lines are the pinnacle of precision when it comes to explaining the Gospel.
God chose us, but He did not choose us because of who we are or who we could be. None of us are so special as to be chosen over any other. We were saved because of what Jesus did. Because He did what we could not do, and He lived perfectly and died, taking on the wrath of God we could not handle. He provided a way for us to be with God for eternity, but He does not provide us eternity because of anything we did, do, or could do. He provides us salvation because it is who He is. Because His very nature is good. Because His very nature is love. And because we are His, He loves us.