In the summer of 2015, I was on a family vacation to England. At some point, I was sitting in a cafe with my laptop. I opened up Spotity to listen to music.
There was a recommendation to check out the album “Borderland” by John Mark McMillan. I decided to check it out.
At first, I was hesitant. I thought it would sound identical to other music that was coming out from other faith-based artists. Although that’s not terrible, I still wanted to hear something new, something different.
By the time I reached the second song, I realized that this was something else. I listened to this album almost non-stop for the rest of our vacation. We spent long rides in the car singing along as a family.
And it was during that time that John Mark McMillan came out with a new EP, together with his wife Sarah. It’s called “You Are The Avalanche”. The third song on that EP is called “King of My Heart”.
Flash forward about a year or so, and my wife was organizing a Jewish-Arab youth conference in Israel. A team from the US graciously came to serve in this event, particularly in playing music.
On one evening during the conference, they played “King of My Heart”. I was so excited. But it took me a moment to understand why I was so excited. I was so excited because I got to join in worship to music that I actually discovered on my own.
I wasn’t told that this music was good and I need to sing the words, but I reached that conclusion on my own. With my own heart. That may seem like a small thing, but it was a big thing for me.
There are lots of people out there singing “King of My Heart”. Maybe you sing it too.
Here’s my take on that song: