There’s this concept in the Judeo-Christian tradition called anointing. To generalize, it means that God has chosen someone to perform a specific task or set of tasks and has provided that person with remarkable talents to succeed.

Put simply, it’s like God reaches into our finite reality, taps one of us on the shoulder (well, more realistically, in the head and heart) and, wham-o, we’re granted some special insights and abilities to work hand-in-hand with him.

Some anointments are earthshaking, literally turning us upside down or inside out, after which we set out on a pathway that would have been considered impossible a short time before.

A vivid example of this is the story of the apostle Paul (known to some as St. Paul) who was about as anti-Christian as you can get, admittedly set upon destroying this blasphemous new sect and killing many of its adherents. When he met Jesus on a trip from Jerusalem to Damascus, his “anointment” was probably the most profound in Christian history.

There are other examples from scripture, especially from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). For instance, Abram was anointed by God and renamed Abraham, henceforth recognized as the grand patriarch of the Jewish people. The shepherd boy David was anointed and, later, became the great king who God refers to as being “a man after my own heart.”

I have often felt that George Friedrich Handel was anointed by God, the result of which was the nearly miraculous scoring of The Messiah in just three weeks (close to three hours long and one of the great masterpieces of artistic expression).

When I read A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God, an absolutely astonishing work that I believe he mostly wrote on a train ride, I thought, “this man is anointed.”

I felt the same way when I listened to contemporary singer and songwriter, Lauren Daigle’s first album. What makes all of these examples unique in my mind is that their very humanity is used to point millions of people directly to God.

So, it is to Daigle that I turn now.

As is my practice off and on these days, I was awake early. To me, it’s a time of peace and quiet, with the front shades open, our picture window looking out upon a world before sunrise, dim porch lights keeping total darkness at bay. Sometimes I read, sometimes I pray, sometimes I just sit, contemplating without distraction. Today, at something like 4:30 a.m., I put on my headphones and queued up Daigle’s album, How Can it Be? Although I haven’t listened to it in awhile now, I know it well and the lyrics and music connect with me deeply. They bring me quickly to a place of worship. And, while I think all twelve songs are excellent, several stand out especially, none more than “Here’s My Heart.”

I have listened to this song in the car, on the trail, and in our home. I never tire of it because the words so clearly express what is deeply in my head and heart, even when I find those two places seemingly overwhelmed by the stuff of this life. The instruments and Ms. Daigle’s voice bring these truths to full life, blasting away the obfuscating outer layers as if a lump of coal sheds carbon to bring forth a diamond.

The first stanza:

Here’s my heart, Lord

Here’s my heart, Lord

Here’s my heart, Lord

Speak what is true

Here’s my heart, Lord

Here’s my heart, Lord

Here’s my heart, Lord

Speak what is true

Simple. Methodical. Meditative. She leads with this most personal and powerful of offerings. “I surrender my heart to you, Lord.” As the heart is the metaphorical center of love and all other feelings; of the things we both hope for and fear, of joys and suffering, when we turn it over to the omnipotent God, we are giving him the center of our being. In return, all we ask is that he shares with us the truth of all things.

The next stanza:

I am found, I am Yours

I am loved, I’m made pure

I have life, I can breathe

I am healed, I am free

I might say that Ms. Daigle has captured the heart of the entire Gospel in four simple lines. What is she saying?

“I am found. I am Yours.” Diving in, the truth is that God is always seeking us, through thick and thin. I should know. When my eyes were finally opened, I saw this clearly as if I’d been in the thickest of fogs for most of my life, not really knowing that but perhaps aware at the deepest subconscious level. Daigle’s declaration is that that process is over. “I am found.” And, once found by God, there is no decision to be made but to surrender. This truth blasted into my fully conscious self in less time than it takes to write this paragraph.

But, then, we move immediately to the consequences of these two things; that is being found and surrendering. And, what consequences they are!

Four things. I have life. I can breathe. I am healed. I am free.

To one who does not believe in this whole Jesus or Christian thing, such declarations must seem very strange, even ridiculous. To say that “I have life” presumably means that a moment ago, I was either dead or only partially alive … and what does that mean? To me, it means that the true essence of life is found in a relationship with God. It’s basically a binary thing, although I imagine there are probably shades. The popular reference (although we hear it less and less these days) is to being “born again,” a thing Jesus actually spoke about in John 3:3.

So, what happens when a person obtains the fullness of life after surrendering to God? “I can breathe.”

Here we go again. What does this mean and does it imply one did not “breathe” before surrendering? Well, yes.

As a lifelong asthmatic who has fairly regular episodes of struggling for oxygen, I’m quite the fan of full breaths. It’s truly an amazing thing, probably not understood by someone who is unaware of what struggling for air consistently through life can be like. I know of other songs with lyrics such as “You are the air I breathe” and those that include the phrase, “breath of God.” They each describe the supernatural force that is similar to the one that gives us life in this world. I do not hesitate at all to say that breathing after surrender is a whole different kettle of fish. From my experience, it’s the difference between having partially diseased lungs which battle to provide my body with life and how it is when the lungs are fully healthy and sweet air is filling every pore.

“I am healed.” Yes, this is a healing. With full breath and life-giving force flowing, the disease is gone. We are made to be in union with God and when we are not, we suffer a disease, again a very, very difficult thing to countenance from a secular perspective. But, if there really is an all-powerful God who is behind the whole thing and he loves us fully and unconditionally and seeks for us to be in deep relationship with him, then the absence of that is not that dissimilar from being diseased. I accept that this will be alienating to some but I can only say what I believe to be true.

Finally, “I am free.”

I am reminded of the image I’ve seen several times and I know exists perpetually and that is of a room full of some 30-40 men, all dressed in denim blue shirts and pants. They are prisoners in our regional state penitentiary, serving different amounts of time for doing very bad things, among them things that require they spend the rest of their lives behind bars in the most awful of places. These particular groups of men, after encountering Jesus for the first time or maybe decades ago, raise their hands in the air and shout out how free they are. In prison. With joy on their faces.

We are all in bondage to things of this world but when that bondage is transferred to God, the other bonds lose their hold (or at least begin to) and we are offered freedom.

* * * * *

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

* * * * *

As the song continues, Daigle repeats the first and second stanzas and then follows with this.

You are strong, You are sure

You are life, You endure

You are good, always true

You are light breaking through

From statements about us, she moves to describing the character of God, his essence so to speak. This is not a weak or distant God. This is not just one god among many or a passive character observing from the sidelines. No, this is a majestic figure, purposeful and reliable, always there regardless. He is life itself. And, make no mistake, he is also Good and True. There is such a thing as actual objective good. And, there is such a thing as wrong, neither of which are merely functions of our own wishes and feelings. While it’s hard to explain what she means by “light breaking through,” it’s pretty much another way of portraying an emergence from a fog or the opening of eyes previously clouded, images that I used to reject as fanciful until they actually happened.

There is more repetition of previous stanzas until she includes this last one and brings it all together:

You are more than enough

You are here, You are love

You are hope, You are grace

You’re all I have, You’re everything

When I sing along in my mind these special words (or if alone in my car I actually sing aloud), I am deeply moved because they cut to my very core and define who I am. My heart wants to burst, which some Christians will recognize as “Deep calling to Deep,” the indwelling of the Spirit reaching out in love to the Father and Son.

“You are more than enough.” What does that mean? I receive it as a truth that even when we think we are full … we’ve had enough… that “enough” does not approach what God has in store. And that is that he is fully present here and now. “You are here.” And that presence is manifested as perfect Love, Hope and Grace, perhaps the most powerful and compelling forces in all of reality.

The final line can seem a bit peculiar. “You’re all I have, You’re everything.” Does this mean that I truly have nothing else and that neither other people nor other things are important? At first glance it may seem that way but that’s not what the words really mean.

No, it means that when we are in a vibrant relationship with God, everything is manifested through him. We still deeply love our spouses, children, and friends and that is very good but through God, those attachments are given a special meaning that is hard to explain. The really, really tough thing to explain is that without God, there is no ultimate meaning to our existence and, therefore, no firm ground on which to trust in and build a life of complete flourishing.

As I naturally do, I can recall my former life, the one I built on shifting sands. I know that, should someone have said this to me twenty years ago, I would have had all sorts of responses, including the argument that I felt my life was on firm foundations, giving all sorts of good reasons. But, here’s the deal. I would have been telling a lie. Because it wasn’t.

I know some wonderful people who are atheists and agnostics. They are good people and I love them. They will have their own take on these kinds of things. However, I can only testify to what I now know and to the way that God has burst into my life as if I see the dawn for the first time and it is glorious. The light and warmth greets the darkness and fog, which dissipates before its power and glory.

To live within the space defined in this song is to, for all practical purposes, live in a different reality. A different dimension. Or, as I always say, to have one foot firmly planted in two worlds. Yes, You are the air that I breathe, for which I am eternally thankful. Amen.