Gray has become one of my favorites.Everything Sad is Coming Untrue
Artist: Jason Gray (www.jasongray.com)
Label: Centricity Music
Length: 13 tracks/49:12 minutes
Everything Sad is Coming Untrue by Jason Gray is the kind of recording that Rich Mullins might make if he were still alive today. People like Mullins, Andrew Peterson, Derek Webb, Randall Goodgame, Chris Rice and Jason Gray have something in common. They see things a little differently. They write in imaginative ways. Their words are sometimes quirky but that can be the setting for some revealing insight.
I am thankful that when we lose people like Mullins, or when other luminaries fade from view, it seems like God brings along others to carry on. Jason Gray is one who stands in that line of faithful witnesses. From my perspective, he has come out of nowhere to become one of my favorites.
“How I Ended up Here” is a fine example of what I find so endearing about him. It’s humorous, self-deprecating, honest and peculiar enough to make it stand out. How many are willing to say that they don’t like people at all? (I’m sure that he’s just expressing how some of us feel at times.) Who would admit that they fear someone talking their ear off, which is how they ended up hiding in front of a lobster tank?
On “The Golden Boy & the Prodigal,” like the two sides of a coin, Gray sings of the ideal self that we tend to project to others and our actual selves, which we tend to hide. Care to guess which one Jesus died for?
“Jesus, Use Me, I’m Yours” is a stripped-down, self-effacing (“I’m not much to look at”) song of surrender. As I listened while driving one day, my heart melted like wax. It was deep calling to deep with my spirit echoing his cry.
“I Am New,” a joyous celebration of all that we are in Christ, is a favorite. It contains a wealth of Scriptural affirmations and music that soars. Listen to this to bolster your spiritual identity.
“Fade with Our Voices” is right up there with the best in contemporary worship. It’s a reminder that worship is more than a song, it’s what we do with our lives. May our devotion not fade with our voices.
Just the title alone of “Everything Sad is Coming Untrue” is a winner. This is definitely in the spirit of Mullins with its poetic imagery of the reverse of the curse. The background calls and the captivating music that breaks in on the chorus are terrific. It even ends with a hammer dulcimer playing along.
Jason Gray makes a believer out of me. I am reminded as I listen to the title song that the effects of the curse—no matter how real and trying— are as nothing before God’s truth and faithfulness.
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