[ WM ] It ’ s a great statement . Actually , that ’ s a good segue , because I go to a small church , a little country church with about 75 people on a Sunday . I ’ m 66 years old and I ’ m young at my church . ( laughing ) So I like the whole generational thing . We sing your song “ Firm Foundation ( He Won ’ t )” and I just love the call and response in that song . Then you do it here again in this live album before transitioning into “ Great Are You Lord ”. Tell us what is that like leading with a room full of people ?
[ Cody ] Oh , that is one of my favorite songs , if not my favorite song right now to lead live . It is just that song means a lot to me . It came to me when I was in the middle of a panic attack . I had been just kind of carrying this heaviness for a couple weeks , and there were a lot of days when I woke up in that time period , that I just didn ’ t even want to get out of bed . And it felt like Groundhog Day . It was like every day was the same , I just I don ’ t feel like getting out of bed . I just felt heavy . I felt this weight of anxiety and depression and things I ’ ve never really dealt with before . I didn ’ t know what to do with ‘ em . And one morning I woke up and the Lord said , “ You ’ re going to sing your way out of this today ”.
And I thought , “ Okay , how are we going to do that ?” And before I knew it , I was writing “ Firm Foundation ”. I just walking around my house early in the morning and God was just giving me that song and those declarations . It was really amazing !
I went back and listened to the voice memo recently of that song . Once I started writing it , I just started to push record on my phone and let it just roll . And I went back and listened , and you can hear my heart literally flipping upside down , from deep anxiety to confident hope and joy in Jesus . And so that song literally just pulled me out of the pit that morning . And so , I love what it does . I understand now as a songwriter ( after writing songs for so many years at this point ) that the encounters with Jesus that you have in songs … they get locked up in those songs and
Firm Foundation ( He Won ’ t ) + Great Are You Lord
people are invited into a similar encounter with Jesus that you had , when that song is sung in church . When that song is experienced … when it ’ s heard in a car , when it ’ s heard in a hospital room .
I love seeing that every time I lead it . I really see God doing that same pulling out of the pit thing in people ’ s lives , people ’ s hearts , and their minds when I sing that song . It ’ s so fun to lead . It really is just this song full of this tenacious joy in the face of fear .
“ Great Are You Lord ” is a tag that we started adding about a year ago , and I ’ m so excited that there ’ s a version out finally that includes that . It was so fun to include my good friend David Leonard who wrote “ Great Are You Lord ”. We ’ re old friends . He actually produced “ Run to the Father ”. We ’ ve been connected for a while now , he ’ s kind of like a big brother to me . And to have him lead his song with me on this album and the way that those two songs connect is really beautiful . I do it every time I lead ‘ Firm Foundation ( He Won ’ t )” now . It ’ s a vertical moment and just lifts a room in praise to Jesus … it ’ s beautiful .
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