Album Lyrics

Music at Ada

Unfold Our Hands | Track Thirteen

Written by Matt Bell © 2007

download

Father, you have loved and shown your mercy
sent your son to set us free
Jesus, you did not cling to heaven's throne
gave your life to save our own

and Spirit, you have been our guide
to the place that we can now call life

you unfold our hands.  you break our hearts
you're working your good through every part
exceeding in joy, with not much to claim
you unfold our hands to give once again

there is gaining found in losing
there is living found in dying
there is worth in what is broken
and there is love in words unspoken

The Story Behind the Tune


A note from Matt Bell
I wrote this song following the Unleaching a Generous Heart series. I tried to capture what God does in us to move us towards generosity.  He teaches us to unfold our hands with what we have to give to others. Most times this involves breaking our hearts of the selfishness and greed that longs to just accumulate and store for ourselves.  Sacrificial generosity then becomes a natural response to God working His good in and through us.

A note from Chris Walker
Our songwriters are awesome.  You don’t even realize what they go through in shaping melodies and lyrics.  Sometimes everything just comes out of nowhere and they have an amazing song that’s ready to go. But more often than not, they’re struggling to put together pieces of music that have been giving to them by the Spirit, trying to shape them into something that will benefit others. 

Matt did that with this song, fighting with the bridge section.  I think we had approximately 428 different versions of this song.  What’s beautiful is that Matt worked – HARD - until it was right. 

You know what’s cool about that?  He gave himself away - his talents, his time, his frustrations - just so he could give us a song that we could use to express how we should be giving ourselves away. 

I’m so thankful for the way our musicians live, and how that comes out in their songs.