Esther Oji - First and Last Lyrics
Lyrics
When the world begins to fade away
Still You’re there You stay the same
A firm foundation and the Way
A soul anchored in the waves
When the wind it blows and shakes my faith
And tempts me to abandon the race
I can see Your love I feel Your strength
Through it all I am safe
You have always been the First
You have always been the Last
You’re holding all of my future
Even though You know my past
Your love Your love will always last
Though the earth will pass away
Your love is stronger than the grave
And Your word remains through every age
What You say will never change
There’s never been a love so sure
There’s never been a hope so strong
None like You Jesus
Your love will always last
First and Last (Visualizer) - Eleni Baker (feat. Benjamin Shafer)
Video
Moments of Worship by Minister Esther Oji | Free at Last #cozaglobal
Meaning & Inspiration
"A soul anchored in the waves."
It’s a peculiar, almost violent image when you stop to stare at it. Esther Oji writes this, and it sticks because of the sheer physical contradiction. We are taught that an anchor is a tool of fixity—a heavy iron hook meant to bite into the silent, immovable mud of the seabed to defy the current. But the "waves" are the definition of instability. They are chaos in motion. To be anchored in them is to be tethered to the very thing that is trying to pull you apart.
Is it a cliché? On the surface, yes. We hear "anchor" in church songs so often it loses its weight; it becomes a metaphor for mere stability. But if we treat it as poetry, the tension is jagged. In Hebrews 6:19, the writer speaks of a hope that acts as an "anchor for the soul, firm and secure." That is the theological promise. But in this line, Oji isn't talking about being anchored to the floor of the ocean—the place where things are quiet. She is talking about being anchored to the waves themselves.
It forces a question: Are we looking for God to pull us out of the turbulence, or are we looking for God to be the turbulence itself?
Most days, I want the "firm foundation" she mentions in the preceding line. I want the solid ground. I want the stillness. But reality rarely gives us that. Reality is the wind blowing and the faith shaking. When the waves are crashing, "anchoring" usually implies drowning. You don't want an anchor in a storm; you want a life raft. Yet, here is the grace—the radical, unsettling grace of the line. It suggests that the person of Jesus isn't just the shore you hope to reach; He is the very instability you are currently drifting through.
There is a strange, unfinished peace in this. If I can be anchored in the waves—if I can be held by God in the exact middle of the thing that scares me—then I don't actually need the storm to stop. I don't need the wind to die down before I can find my footing.
It’s a hard thought to live with. It’s easier to demand a miracle—the immediate calming of the sea—than to accept the presence of a God who meets us in the middle of the swell. It’s not a comfortable, safe-feeling worship lyric if you really sit with it. It’s a declaration that my security isn't predicated on the absence of motion, but on the Presence that occupies the motion with me.
When Oji sings this, she isn't promising an end to the weather. She’s suggesting that even in the shift, there is a "First and Last" who isn't shaken by the surface tension. It’s a revelation that feels less like a warm blanket and more like a hard, cold, necessary truth. You are caught in the movement, yes, but you are not drifting. You are held by something that knows the physics of the water better than the water itself.