Ada Ehi - Settled Lyrics

Video

Ada Ehi - Settled (The Official Video)

Meaning & Inspiration

I’ve spent a lot of evenings sitting on my porch, watching the light stretch thin across the yard, thinking about what sticks and what burns away. When you reach my age, you learn that much of what we shout in the morning doesn’t have the legs to carry us through the midnight ache.

Ada Ehi sings, "Instead of crawling, I’m flying," and my hands, knotted and stiff as they are, want to dismiss it as the sort of thing people say when the sun is high and their knees are still supple. It is easy to talk of flying when the wind is at your back. But then I stop. I look at that phrase again. There is a weight to it that catches me, not because it’s a promise of ease, but because it’s a recognition of a transformation that happens beneath the skin.

Scripture speaks of those who wait on the Lord renewing their strength, mounting up with wings like eagles. It doesn’t say they never walked through the mud. It says they stopped crawling. When I was younger, I thought grace was about being lifted out of the pit. Now, I see it’s more often about the change in posture, the way you stand when everything else has collapsed. Is it "young man's noise"? Maybe. But maybe it’s also the steady, quiet conviction of someone who finally understands that the change—the real, "E don change" kind of change—isn't about our circumstances settling down, but about us settling into Him.

Then there is that refrain: "It’s not by power, certainly not by might." It’s an old truth, older than me, older than the hymnals I’ve thumbed through for decades. Zechariah 4:6 isn't just a verse on a page; it’s the only thing that kept me standing when my own strength had long since evaporated. When I listen to Ehi, I hear a joy that feels a bit frantic, a bit loud. My own prayers have quieted over the years—they are whispers now, more silence than words—but there is an honesty in her insistence that "everything has changed."

I wonder, though, what happens when the "everything" changes back to something painful? When the house grows quiet and the news isn't good? Does the "Settled" peace she sings about hold then? I like to think it does, because if it is truly in the name of Jesus, it cannot depend on the mood of the singer. It is a terrifying and beautiful thought, that we might be held together by a Name rather than our own ability to keep our lives in order. I don't have all the answers. My life hasn't been a smooth flight; it’s been a series of stumbles, some graceful, some not. But when the light goes out, I find myself clinging to that same Name, hoping that even if I am crawling, He sees the flight He promised.