Lauren Daigle has a new song out titled “Hold On To Me.”  One of her former hits, “You Say” was on the charts for months, and I wrote a blog on it as well.  I believe these two songs touch something deep in our nation’s current psyche. People feel disconnected. Many pass like ships on an angry sea.  They are pilgrims wandering in a wasteland of angry words and conflicting ideas, longing to hear words like “I love you” or “There IS hope” from a transcendent, loving God. 

Lauren’s songs have a haunting, searching, mystical feel to them. They seem to be groping for a greater reality, without naming God or getting too preachy with the words and the intent of the message.  I can envision that many are touched by her style and words, reaching out to God. The choir in the background gives a sense that one is not alone in the search, giving the wanderer encouragement to keep seeking for firmer grounding in their Creator.  To her credit, Lauren leaves pilgrims some freedom to wander, giving space for listeners to cry out to God for mercy, while finding their way back home to their Father’s house, where they can be held. 

“Hold On To Me” includes such cries for help as, “When I’m not somebody I believe in / When I don’t feel like I’m worth defending / When I’m tired of all my pretending / When I start to break of desperation underneath the weight of expectation…” 

The chorus adds: “Hold on to me when it’s too dark to see You / When I am sure I have reached the end / Hold on to me when I forget I need You / When I let go, hold me again…”  At the end are the words of hope – not direct, but giving a subtle invitation to let go into the Father’s arms of love.  “I could rest here in your arms forever / ‘cause I know nobody loves me better.”

This is a song for wounded pilgrims needing to come home into the arms of love.  I kept thinking of certain words from the prophets.  First, our heavenly Father speaks in the feminine to express His love through Isaiah:  “Can a mother forget the infant at her breast, walk away from the baby she bore?  But even if mothers forget, I’d never forget you – never.  Look I’ve written your names on the backs of my hands” (Isaiah 49:15-16 – Message).   Secondly, compassionate, fatherly words also come from Hosea: “I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love.  To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them” (Hosea 11:4).  

Men, don’t let the cultural narrative limit your opportunity to know a heavenly Father who delights in you.  In the words of Leanne Payne, God is the great “Unseen Real” outside of ourselves.  He is the One who gives the gift of “objective reality.”  Your heavenly Father is reaching out to you, so you can receive His healing word coming to you. Our problem, due to cultural conditioning, is turning in on self in the “disease of introspection.”  This song speaks to a deep, agonizing, introspective search for meaning.   If you identify with the song, I encourage you as an act of your will to look up and out to Jesus and receive his healing word coming to you.

Check out https://youtu.be/RWua9o2KEv0 – and hear the Father say through this song, “You are my beloved, I delight in you!”