'All Is Well' - The Story

Hi,

Recently I wrote a song called ‘All Is Well’ that folk in our church in Belfast seem to have connected with. It seems to be one of those songs that I call a ‘God-song’…something that just came very quickly and that seems to speak into now. Below I have attempted to explain a little about where the song has come from and the story behind it.

All is Well is a song that is written based on Hannah’s Prayer in 1 Samuel 2. The song emerged during a testing time when I was deliberately looking for some clarity or answers in Scripture. I specifically turned to the Bible to discover a little more about what God was saying in relation to our health and wealth. Some questions had been pressing on my mind….’If God is a healer, why does he sometimes not answer prayers for healing?’ ‘If God is our provider, why are some people not provided for?’ and probably more poignantly, ‘Is our own health and wealth purely dependent on our levels of faith and purity in our lives?’ ‘If we are not wealthy or we are sick, is that due to us….to sin in our lives and to a lack of faith?’ ‘Do we control God or is He in control?’.

I appreciate these are big questions and I am most definitely not a theologian however they have been on my mind as I have watched others wrestle with them in our church and as I have watched the global economy beginning to slide. At times I have a concern that we demonstrate a belief that if we work harder, pray more, have a bigger faith, then God is more likely to do what we want.

Unfortunately, it seems that life does not always work out the way we want it to. If we pray more, we do not always get what we want. Life can be very difficult, even if we have faith and pray. Our previous drummers sister died despite our prayers, sometimes it is hard to pay the household bills despite our prayers, sometimes we experience loss that is too personal to mention publically….and this is only for us living in the relative luxury of the west. Are these things our fault? Is this because we haven’t been good enough, pure enough or faithful enough? I would argue that it isn’t our fault based on the fact that God is sovereign, that He is in control (not us).

Hannah had a sense of that in her prayer. She had suffered ‘great anguish and grief’ and had chased after God for an answer, a solution, a hope, a child. On this occasion, God heard her prayer and answered it by giving her a child. However, instead of patting herself on the back for her part in bringing about this happy outcome she prayed a prayer that articulated something of God’s sovereignty. She stated,

“The Lord brings death and makes alive;
He brings down to the grave and raises up.
The Lord sends poverty and wealth;
He humbles and he exalts.
He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap…
…It is not by strength that one prevails.”

It seems that Hannah was stating through these words that it is God who decides the answers to our prayers. He is the sovereign Lord who sees our circumstance and decides in His way how to respond. He in not controlled by us; neither can He be tamed by us. He is beyond us and chooses to act in His time for His pleasure. This does not mean that He is a cruel, detached, disinterested God. In my life I have seen Him be a wise, loving generous God. He knows more about us and the state of the world than we do. Therefore we can engage with the Father and present our prayers and requests to Him knowing that He cares.

There is very little we can do when we are faced with testing times apart from throw ourselves on the Lord and ask that he responds. However we can do this with assurance that He is a good Father and that He has our best purposes and interests at heart.

‘All Is Well’ comes from that place. It is a song that makes the conscious choice to declare that all is well with my soul because He is God in control. Ultimately, we can trust Him. Regardless of our circumstance or difficulty and even if He does not answer prayer in the way we would like we can still trust Him that all is well.

Like everyone, I have experienced hard and painful times. Times when I have questioned God and sought answers. However, I am pleased to be able to worship God by singing a song that reaches back to Hannah’s prayer and connects with her experiences of trusting a sovereign God. I hope that this song can be an encouragement to you too. Even in the dark days of the fallout from the credit crunch and how that is effecting our lives, I hope you can trust the Father enough to declare that all is well with your soul.