inspiration . What can you tell us about it ?
[ Brandon ] Yeah . I remember when we wrote that song , it was me , Chris Brown , and Pastor Steven Furtick . And we had a write that day , and I came in and I started riffing on the guitar . And I remember I kind of started fast at first , and it was more ... me and Chris started working on this really rock and roll tune . And so , I ' m doing this progression , and then Pastor Steven walks in , and he ' s like , " Hey , I love that ." He ' s like , " Slow it down and just pick exactly what you ' re playing . Slow it down ." And so , I begin to slow it down , and then we just got into this vibe , which is what you hear now . And the song is really , just a one chord with an occasional four chord or opens-up to the E .
And so we ' re riffing on this , and then Pastor Steven just basically starts talking , writing very storyesque , just like talking this story out . And it honestly came together so quickly , and I can ' t remember which part came first or anything .
But I just remember him ... talk , " Mommy used to drag me to church ."
And lines like that , and then it just began to spill out . And I ' ll never forget when he began to say , " Grandma used to pray out loud by her bed every night ." And as that began to unfold , I ' m realizing , this is my story , this first verse . And so , I can ' t remember exactly how it all came together , but what ' s so beautiful about that song is I would say that first verse is my story of how I even discovered what a prayer language was and what speaking in tongues was .
I remember being a young boy and hearing my grandma literally praying in the spirit and asking her about that . And then her telling me and educating me on what that gift was . And so then obviously , fast forward through the song , and I grew up in church , and so it ' s very much my story , in that I was dragged to church every Wednesday . And every Wednesday night , Friday night , Sunday .
And then obviously , verse three is Pastor Steven talking about his boys . And I think we got all the verses first , and then I remember adding the part , " What a friend we have in Jesus ." And then once we have that center point , that all these verses come around this thought that , man , what a friend we have in Jesus .
We could have said a lot of things , but I think it pairs so nicely , the idea of Jesus being a friend with these verses that ' s very much like a country song , or like a story . So yeah , kind of just came together , honestly , in a matter of moments .
And then I remember we were like , " Where do we put this song ? This is not a traditional worship song . How could we ever do this ?" We had this collaboration coming up with Maverick City and Elevation . And honestly , it was just kind of like a , " Let ' s try it . Let ' s give it a shot . Why not ?" So , Pastor Steven ' s like , " Hey , what do you feel about leading it ?" And I ' m like , " Hey , I ' ll try ."