a little snippet of a Geron Davis interview

On a Saturday night we built a brand new church and my dad was the pastor. My dad had asked me for several weeks if I’d write a song for the first Sunday. And I was a teenager and I’d already starting writing songs, so my dad said, write us a song. Okay, dad, I will. And then I kind of put it off because I was a teenager, I had important stuff, I was 19, Mr. Cool. And dad asked me a couple of different times, it was like, chill man, I’ll write the song.

Saturday night, midnight. I realized it was only a few hours until the first Sunday service and I probably better not put it off any longer. I sat down at the piano and you know what, I had an encounter with God that lasted about 15 minutes. And at the end of that 15 minute period, I had all the words and the music to we’re standing on Holy Ground. Now I didn’t realize at the time what an encounter with God it was. I thought I was just throwing together something for my dad to make the first day special, to make him happy. And I went home and went to bed. I didn’t hear any bells. I didn’t feel the wind blow. I didn’t get cold chills. I was just, man I’m tired, I’m ready to go to bed. But later I look back and I realize that was an encounter with God. Heaven showed up and something incredible happened.

And you know one of the interesting things about that, Matt, is I use it to tell young people, don’t think in your mind, what will I do for God when I get older. Understand that God wants to use you right now. And when I wrote that, here’s the downside of that. The downside of that is I sit here now in 2006, Barbara Streisand recorded it. It’s been published in virtually every language. They tell me over 100 million people have heard and sung that song. It was used at a presidential inauguration, all kind of different things and it’s just humbling to see that. And a lot of people think, wow, I wish my ministry could be validated like that. The truth of the matter is, from the time that I wrote Holy Ground until the time that Barbara Streisand recorded it, 18 years went by. I didn’t write Holy Ground to be a hit. I wrote it to meet a need in the little church in the little town that I was in.

And a lot of times it can get frustrating when you’re singing to the same 150 people every weekend and you feel like my music’s never going to get out there, I’m never going to be able to touch the world. But what I did was, I tried to apply the principle in the Bible that says if you’re faithful over a few things, then God will make you ruler over many. And it’s our nature, our human nature is we want to make ourselves ruler over many things. All we can do, all we really have the power to do is just be faithful. And God is the only one who has the ability and the power and the authority to make us ruler. And I tried to take David as an example. He sat on the back side of a pasture and wrote – most of his Psalms were not written when he was king, they were written when he was a shepherd. And so he wrote things after he was king, but so many of his Psalms were written when he was on the back side of the pasture with a bunch of little sheep, never knowing and dreaming that one day he would be king. And so I just try to write songs that I thought would work in the setting that I was in and in due season, God brought it to fruition as only God could do it.

Comments

[Wanda]

So true. When I think about how much energy spent of squeaking by so I can move on to the next thing, I will remember that the true Author and Finisher is the Creator, and that isn't me. Not a jot nor a tittle was first formed in my brain, I am honored to occasionally be in the right place to hear, to act upon, to share through my meanderings, a refelection, a word from the One who is the Word. We may stand on holy ground, but for writers, it is holy penmanship. If I think first about Who is giving me the words to write, instead of who can I sell this to, or who can I get to read it. As my Momma' says "It ain't about you."

Great article, tremendous lesson.
Thanks!
w

[Shane Yancey]

Thanks, I needed to hear that today.

[matt tullos]

This story Geron told was a huge encouragement to me as an aspiring writer, glad it's ministered to you two also. I'm am slowly learning to turn over the keys, the title, and the garage for that matter over to the real creator. I really want to stop being an author and start being a man who hears God say: Write these words... As He said to the beloved apostle John.