Sojourn worship leader/ songwriter Rebecca Dennison tells the story behind her song “My Rock and My Redeemer,” one of our favorites here at Sojourn. You can hear the track at Last FM and get the chord sheet from our These Things I Remember page here at sojournmusic.com before or after reading Rebecca’s story:
I wrote the words and melody to “My Rock and My Redeemer” (recorded on Sojourn’s These Things I Remember) back in 2000. I was participating in a women’s Bible Study at the time and it was the first time I’d really experienced godly fellowship with other women. That Bible Study became a haven: a place where it was safe to be broken and where I began to feel people accepting me as I really was. I had been struggling through a time of feeling distant from God (the season lasted several years) and Psalm 33 and Psalm 62 had become some of my favorite passages of scripture:
From Psalm 33:
18 But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
19 to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.
20 We wait in hope for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
21 In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
From Psalm 62:
1 My soul finds rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from him.
2 He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will never be shaken
5 Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
7 My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
8 Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.
When I saw the injunction to “Pour out your hearts to him” it seemed to validate the way I had always related to God. There it was in black and white, explicit permission to tell God everything I was going through.
Through the course of the women’s Bible Study, God began to show me lies that I was believing and to teach me His truths. For example, I can remember working my way through a study and realizing that I didn’t really believe God was acting out of love for me. I could remember lots of verses about Him doing things to bring glory to His name, but I couldn’t remember anything about Him doing those things out of love. So I started looking for verses about God’s love. I compiled quite a list and carried it around with me, tucked in my Bible, for a couple of years.
God also began to expose a lot of lies about my worth and standing before Him. I realized that I couldn’t fight those lies myself. I couldn’t reason my way out of them. But when I could see the contradiction in black and white in scripture I had something I could hang onto, something I could show the Devil and say “See, that’s a lie, this is what’s true.”
It reminds me of the passage in The Hobbit when Bilbo approaches Smaug for the first time. Bilbo reminds himself that dragons are very clever and that they will find out more from your conversation than you mean to tell them. Satan is like that dragon – he is smarter than I am. I can’t possible hope to out-argue or out-logic him. But God is smarter still. I don’t have to rely on my understanding or ability to figure things out. In fact, it would be foolish to do so. But I can rely on God’s understanding. I can hide behind His wisdom, His truth. I don’t have to understand everything He does or says. God is Sovereign, He is good, and He loves me. He is my rock and my refuge.
