Maybe I’m on an oldie streak. Also I have COVID, but that’s unrelated.

I first heard this song during a praise set and liked it. Because I liked the song, I went to go look it up on Spotify. I first noticed that the original artist was Darlene Zschech with Hillsong Worship, which told me this was a probably an oldie. Then, I listened to the first twenty seconds and realized, “Ohhhhh this is definitely an oldie.”

No offense to the original but I found the original sounded a little too dated for me and preferred the version I heard from MBS instead. Which sorta sucks since I can’t find that on Spotify. Anyway, here’s what I got.

I made pretty short work of this song, using this piano arrangement as reference. Melodically, it was pretty simple and I did not try anything experimental with this song. I will say that my favorite musical part of this song is probably in the verse and the pre-chorus. It’s very pretty and I like pretty sounding things and enjoy trying to figure out what makes the pretty sounding thing work.

For example, in the verse line, “I know for sure…all of my days are held in my hand, crafted into…your perfect plan”, there’s a chord progression of a IV-iv-vi-II7-ii-V, which is *chef’s kiss*. I dunno, there’s something from the switching back and forth of major to minor to major then minor before ending on a major resolution is musically satisfying and something that I haven’t heard too much in praise songs.

The same goes for the line in the pre-chorus, “Set me apart, I know that you’re drawing me to yourself, Lead me, Lord, I pray”, with a chord progression of something like: I-IV-III7-vi-II-V. I love me some interesting chord progressions.

My Thoughts

As I mention earlier, the verse and the chorus was what stood out to me and lyrics-wise, it is the same as well. I’ll start by talking about the verse of this song:

Beautiful Lord, Wonderful Savior 
I know for sure, all of my days are held 
in Your hands, crafted into 
Your perfect plan 
You gently call me into Your presence, 
guiding me by Your Holy Spirit 
Teach me dear Lord to live all of my life 
through Your eyes 

There is something reassuring about the words, “I know for sure, all of my days are held in Your hands, crafted into your perfect plan”. As a side fun fact, there is also a similar line from the song, “Goodness of God” as well. I think it illustrates quite a bit about the nature of God. God is a personal Father who has known me well and everything about my life is in His capable hands. This particular line reminds me of how small I am and how big God is.

I am well taken care of and I am not a lost cause.

There’s generally a lot of things I don’t like about myself. Sometimes, I just feel really broken. I feel like a failure and I am afraid of being a hopeless failure with nothing I can do about it. All of these things are true but God is a potter still working at me, patiently teaching me to live life the way He intended and molding me, filling me, guiding me each day. It’s a long but personal process with God intimately working with me into someone more loving, more elevated, and more pleasing to Him. The ways I feel lacking or a failure, especially when compared to others, does not deter God. He hasn’t given up on me and I’m still a work in progress, not a lost cause. I need to pin my hope on that. He is doing a new thing in me.

Perhaps, this is repetitive and echoing what I’ve mentioned about other praise songs but it’s always worth the reminder and allowing truth to hit me once again.