We caught up with Jonathan about the new ep below:
The psalms have always been one of my favourite parts of the Bible. I find them such a great way to connect with God and I love the honesty that the psalms display. I've been spending a lot of time in the psalms this year and every now and then there'll be a psalm that I just have to stop on and read over and over. The first being Psalm 1. I was struck with the simplicity of meditating day and night on the word, so I took to doing that with the psalms, just taking a passage or a verse and reading it over and over, writing it down, praying it, singing it. In seasons of difficulty I found the promise of psalm 1 to be true. That the one who meditates on the word is like a tree, planted by streams of water - his leaves do not wither and he bears fruit in its season. The busier that life and ministry gets, it becomes vital to be rooted in the word. Being planted by the streams of God's word became a constant source of strength and joy. I found God there. I found peace. I found new songs. I experienced the delight that is spoken about in verse 2 of psalm 1. And began to write songs taken from the psalms.
These songs were more personal than the kind of songs I usually write. These were often songs sung in secret, about who God is and who I am to Him. As much as I enjoy the process of recording a full album with a band and a studio, and getting to sing them live with crowds of people, I wanted to capture these songs in the same way that they were written, in the secret place. I wanted to go back to the simplicity of being in my room with a guitar, piano and a laptop, recording the songs as they came out and releasing them as they are. They're simple songs, many of them prayers, they're not polished, but they're deeply personal songs that have been birthed out of prayer and meditation on certain psalms that God has highlighted to me. Psalm 139 (You See), Psalm 119 (Let Me Not Wander), Psalm 91 and Psalm 1 (By The Streams). Each one is like a bookmark in the Bible and a reminder of what God taught me through spending time in those passages. I hope that in some way my interpretations of these psalms would help people to connect with God in a personal way as well, but more than anything to discover Him and His word for themselves, and to discover the joy of being planted by the streams.
