personal level , to glean from the text and why it was written . I think if there ' s anything that I ' ve come back around to understanding is that the vast majority of great hymns that have stood the test of time , and that we still sing them at church , still make us feel things because they are born out of suffering . I think this is really important for the church and for songwriters , today .
So “ Leaning on the Everlasting Arms ” was written to comfort two young men who both lost their wives . “ What a Friend We Have in Jesus ” was written by a missionary whose mother was sick . He was in Canada and couldn ' t be with her , so he wrote a letter to her . And his life was filled with hardship . It ' s just story after story after story .
And so I think , in particular with “ Leaning on the Everlasting Arms ”, it was literally just the line that preceded it , which was , " If I rise or fall , if I stand at all ."
It flowed right out . And then it became this moment of , “ Oh wow , well that ' s interesting !” And the song was written over several sessions , several songwriting sessions . Lizzie Morgan , who sings on it with me , we kind of wrote what are the verses . We wrote the first verse together , and it originally was a chorus . And then we got together with one of the producers , Brian Elmquist , and he said to me , " I really feel like that chorus you have is the verse ."
I guess because the verse ended with , " I ' m leaning on your everlasting arms ," I just thought , “ What does the original hymn say ?” And I read that opening line of the refrain of what a fellowship , and I just thought man that ' s a counter cultural thing to say right now , at a time when culture has never been more individualistic and has never been more isolated and never been more divided .
Just the idea of throwing out back into the ether that God himself is a fellowship . He ' s a trinity .
Three persons .
I remember a friend of mine once said the thing about the Our Father is that we should never barely be able to get past the our . That should floor us enough . And so , the song wasn ' t really inspired by the hymn . The hymn kind of became rocket fuel , I think , for the themes of the song , including the bridge are … " The more I ' m flying , it feels like dying and more like living for heaven on earth ." I think that ' s just born out of the past two years , like everyone , of just experiencing loneliness and uncertainty and watching friends or friends of the family or loved ones suffer with illness or disease , wars and rumors of wars , all of it .
And the idea that in the midst of all that still , there is a way of living with easy burdens . In some ways it was a cathartic release of two years . The song was written midway through the summer , last year . So , I kind of experienced a lot . But I would say ultimately ,