I first sang the chorus “Where would I be without your grace” at a prayer and worship night. It was one of those melodies I loved to sing in intimate worship settings, because it opened up the opportunity for reflection while in the worship singing context.
In Matthew 28 Jesus leaves the disciples with a final promise as his earthly ministry comes to an end, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The grace of Jesus is constantly interacting and working throughout our lives saving and protecting us from things we may not even be aware of. Most times I find we’re quick to complain and slow to give thanks. If we really believe that Jesus is with us always that means his grace is covering sins and mistakes that we aren’t even conscious of. Where Would I Be is a song that points the believer to reflecting on this specific element of God’s grace.
So for a long time it was just a verse and chorus progression that I would use in prayer and extended worship settings, it wasn’t until we were prepping to go into our One Day series that I started to think about adding other elements into the song and making it something we could use across campuses. The “One Day” series focuses on all the “one-day” incidents in the Bible. All it takes is one day, one conversation, one moment of worship, one word of encouragement or one word from God to completely alter a persons live or nudge us in a different direction. When we were brainstorming for One Day, Where Would I Be ended up feeling like the right chorus to get that point across. What would my life look like if not for that one day where I made a decision to step towards the front of a church and receive Christ as my savior? What would any of our lives look like without the grace of God intervening in those one day moments?
But God isn’t finished with making “One Day” moment more his people. So we went into writing the rest of the song thinking of ways to tie in a future tense. Because the grace of God isn’t just something that happened in the past, it’s something that continues to happen. It was specifically the bridge where we wanted to put an emphasis on how God’s grace is active here, now and forever. He is bringing the dead to life, reclaiming the lost and broken. Where would we be without the grace of Jesus?