Passion + Kristian Stanfill + Kari Jobe + Cody Carnes - Way Maker Lyrics

Video

Way Maker (Live from Passion 2020) ft. Kristian Stanfill, Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes

Meaning & Inspiration

I remember sitting in the pews back in the late seventies, thumbing through a hymnal until the paper grew soft and yellow at the edges. My hands weren't spotted then, and my knees didn't ache when the organ signaled the final stanza. Back then, we sang about "Great Is Thy Faithfulness," and we meant it as a desperate plea for the next day's bread. Hearing Kristian Stanfill, Kari Jobe, and Cody Carnes lead a crowd through "Way Maker" at Passion 2020, I find myself weighing their words against the weight of the years I’ve since collected.

"Even when I don’t see it, You’re working. Even when I don’t feel it, You’re working."

There is a particular kind of quiet that settles over a house at 3:00 a.m. when the house is empty and the shadows in the corner look like ghosts of everything you’ve lost. In those moments, the air feels thin, and the "working" of God feels like a ghost story, too. We are taught to look for fireworks—for the red sea parting or the sudden healing—but most of life is spent in the waiting room.

When you’re young, you shout these lines to the rafters because you believe the miracle is just around the corner. When you’re old, you whisper them because you’re terrified that perhaps the silence is just silence. But then, you look at your own life—the messy, unglamorous survival of it—and you realize that if He hadn’t been moving in the unseen, you wouldn't be here at all. It’s a bitter, beautiful pill to swallow: that the "working" is rarely the change of circumstance we demand, but the preservation of the soul when the circumstance stays exactly as broken as it was yesterday.

It brings to mind the prophet Elijah. He looked for God in the wind, the earthquake, and the fire—the grand, theatrical moments. But the Lord wasn’t there. He was in the "gentle whisper." I think that’s what this song is trying to reach for, even if it’s buried under the roar of a stadium.

It’s hard to reconcile the promise of a "miracle worker" with a body that is failing and a world that seems to be coming apart at the seams. Sometimes, the miracle isn't the mending; sometimes, the miracle is the grace to keep breathing when the heart has been shattered a dozen times over. I don't know if these singers truly understand what they’re promising when they belt out those lines about Him never stopping. I hope they do. But more importantly, I hope they believe it for the days when the applause stops and the house is quiet, and all that’s left is the conviction that He is still there, beneath the floorboards, beneath the skin, keeping a watch that has no end.