Chris Tomlin - Gifts From God Lyrics
Lyrics
Back when I was a kid I thought gifts from God only came from church
But the more that I love, the more I learn, it’s not always the way it works
Sometimes you don’t see it till your looking back
When ya didn’t get what ya thought ya had to have
Cus He had a bigger plan than the one you had
Yours didn’t work out and aren’t you glad
When you take a look around it ain’t hard to find
Everybody’s got things that money can’t buy
If the ones ya love are sitting right beside ya
Then I’d say ya got a lot
The best things in life are straight from His hands
Like raising kids on a piece of land
A little piece of mind when the day is done
Where ya think that comes from
That’s gifts from God
It makes ya thankful for the hills that we climb
For the waves that we ride
For the lows and the highs
For the wrongs made right
For the songs we sing
For the dreams we dream
Makes ya thankful for everything
Hallelujah every day’s a gift from God
Hallelujah every day’s a gift
Hallelujah every day’s a gift from God
Hallelujah every day’s a gift
Hallelujah
Where ya think that comes from
That’s gifts from God
Hallelujah
You know that’s gifts from God
Hallelujah
Every day’s a gift from God
Hallelujah
Every day’s a gift
Gifts from God
Video
Chris Tomlin - Gifts From God (Lyric Video) ft. Chris Lane
Meaning & Inspiration
The lyric that catches in my throat—the one I keep turning over like a smooth stone in my pocket—is this: "Yours didn’t work out and aren’t you glad."
There is a strange, jarring audacity to that line. Chris Tomlin is asking us to audit our losses. It’s an aggressive pivot from the typical, safe Sunday morning rhetoric. Usually, we are taught to frame disappointment as "waiting" or "testing." We treat our failed plans as waiting rooms for something better. But the word "glad" suggests a shift from passive resignation to a weird, almost illogical joy.
Are we actually glad?
If I look at my own life, the moments where my plans fell through weren't pleasant. They were messy. They involved anger and the stubborn pride of a human wanting to hold the steering wheel. To look at a shipwreck of a plan and call it a "gift from God" feels like a radical act of rewriting history. It’s the difference between acknowledging a closed door and being thankful the door was locked because, perhaps, there was a fire on the other side.
Scripture has a way of complicating this. Proverbs 16:9 tells us, "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps." It’s a clean verse, comfortable for a cross-stitch pattern. But the reality of it is often jagged. It implies that my "course"—the one I poured my identity into—might be the very thing that needs to be dismantled for the "steps" to align with something holy. It’s a violent grace, really. It requires a death of the ego before we can even begin to be "glad" about the outcome.
The tension here is whether the lyric is a platitude or a revelation. If it’s just a way to sanitize the sting of a hard life, it’s a cliché. But if you take it seriously, it’s a terrifying request. It asks you to stop grieving the version of your life that didn't happen. Most of us spend our middle years looking in the rearview mirror at the plans that "didn't work out," treating them like ghost limbs—we still feel the pain of them missing.
Tomlin is pushing for a perspective that is almost impossible to maintain: that the frustration of the unfulfilled plan is, in itself, the gift. It suggests that the "No" you received was an act of mercy, even if it felt like an act of malice at the time. I’m not sure I’m always there. I’m not sure I’m always glad. Sometimes the plans that don't work out just stay broken. Yet, there’s a persistent, nagging truth in the question. If you strip away the bitterness of the failed plan, what is left? Often, it’s just the quiet realization that you are still breathing, and that, in its own primitive way, is a gift you didn't earn.