words & music by Doug Howell (8 Aug 1974)
I’ve been seein’ things that I just shouldn’t see
and I’ve been tryin’ to be things in my mind I shouldn’t be
I’ve been goin’ places I really shouldn’t go
Lord, You’re my last chance for life and love
I know, I know
oh, make me pure and holy, Lord
make me kind and true
make me free to love, Jesus
make me just like You
I remember when You used to be
my best and closest friend
and You always gave me your sweet love
please help me to give it back again
I’ve been tryin’ to feel things I’ve got no right to feel
and I’ve gotten so confused I can’t tell what is fake from real
oh, I just can’t be the person that I long to be
unless You pick me up the pieces, Lord
and set my body free
(repeat chorus)
oh, fill me with your sweetness, Lord
fill me with your truth
fill me with your holiness
oh, fill me, Lord, with You
and I pray that You will always be
my best and closest friend
’cause You always gave me your sweet love
please help me to give it back again
to give it back again
Reviews
When I was in high school, the Good News Circle, a singing group, and their preacher Bob Laurent came to Denver to hold evening meetings to share their music and lead people to Jesus. They were truly a huge part of pointing me towards ministry. Doug Howell was a part of the group. Doug is a gifted song writer. His music, singing and lyrics have always deeply touched me. Here’s a song he recently shared. May you be blessed as I have been through this and his other songs. —Doug H.
Love the words! God bless you. —Linda E. Q.
My talented friend has released this beautiful, thoughtful Lenten musical meditation. —BJ L.
Beautiful as always! —Dan L.
I always loved this one. —Diane S.
2020 Notes
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone’s told me he or she was “good.” One concept I learned well when I was a kid was that no one was good. Not me, not anyone. Nobody (see Romans 3:10–12, Ps. 14:3, Ps. 53:3). So when somebody says, often comparing herself with someone else, or trying to bolster his own belief system, “I think I’m pretty good,” I just sit there thinking: “No you’re not. Don’t you know that no one is? We’re all sinners. Nobody’s “good enough.” There is no one who understands; we’ve all turned aside. We are all separated from God. “All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). As you might imagine, I’m a real blast at parties.
Growing up Baptist, or Roman Catholic, or quite a few other denominations for that matter, you get a very keen sense of your own sinfulness, provided you’re paying attention. You can’t avoid it. By age 10, I was quite aware of my own fallen nature, even though probably the worst thing I’d done at that point is stick my tongue out at my mother. That was enough, of course, to point out that I had a rebellious, me-centered nature. Like C. S. Lewis said in “As the Ruin Falls”: “I’ve never had a selfless thought since I was born.” (Check out Phil Keaggy’s beautiful setting of this poem.)
Whatever you think of all this, you can see how drastically it would affect a kid’s worldview. That’s why I’m so thankful that alongside all the sin talk there was love talk too, and plenty of it. And not just talk, thank goodness. That love was exemplified by wonderful friends and family members who lived what they believed. No matter what the extent of my sinfulness (even that sin—and whatever that sin may be for you), God’s love and forgiveness reaches further. I knew that, beyond the shadow of a doubt: “If I make my bed in hell, you are there!” (Ps. 139:8).
Back at St. Barnabas a few summers ago, Joe Summers, a local priest, gave us a presentation on holiness. What an eye-opener! In verse after verse, he unfolded before us how time and time again Jesus turned our distorted notions of holiness completely on their heads. He was constantly touching, or healing, or otherwise hanging out with people that were theretofore considered unclean, or sinners, or excluded. Always doing things that were considered forbidden. Showing by his life that the most important parts of the law were not what we thought they were, as He pointed out in Matthew 22:35-40:
“One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
It’s well past time to stop measuring our holiness by that of others, and start measuring it by how close we are to the heart of our Creator. Love is the more excellent way. Externals are a very small part of the game, it turns out. It’s the rearrangement of the interior architecture God is after. The Eastern Orthodox church calls it theosis: the process of becoming like Christ.
I recently read Boy Erased, by Garrard Conley, his personal account of living through “change therapy.” Purity—holiness—figured largely in his story, too:
“The prayers I continued to recite each night became even more desperate and meaningless. Please help me to be pure. Please-help-me-to-be-pure. Pleasehelpmetobepure.”
So it should be no big surprise to anyone here that I wrote a song—a prayer—asking God for this very thing: to make me holy, to make me just like Him. Ironically, not long after I recorded this version, the first version (from the I’ve Been Freed album) showed up as one of my three most-streamed songs on Apple Music. True, that only requires listeners in the double digits for me at this point, but it’s interesting… Maybe I’m not the only one who feels this need for holiness.
I used to perform this song quite a bit, but I’ve never been totally satisfied with the original arrangement and recording, so it’s been on both the Possible Redux and Possible Unplugged lists for the last year. And I’ve been very taken with a Keith Jarrett arrangement of “It’s All in the Game” lately, so I think a little of that feel has made its way into this reharmonization in spots… May you all have a peace-filled, holy Lent.
Nance, this one’s for you.
2006 Notes
My friend, Nance, and I used to quote this song to each other all the time. Just the line, “life and love, I know, I know.” We used it in a lot of situations, but mainly as a way to sum up when words didn’t make it. The message is an awful lot like “Daniel,” when you think about it. We wander, but he never stops loving us. And it only gets truer the longer I live.
1977 Notes
“You shall be holy, for I am holy.” I Peter 1:16
I used to react very negatively to this verse and others like it. I thought God was saying, “This is how it is: I’m holy so you have to be holy. That’s all there is to it.” This seemed very harsh and unreasonable to me. I realize now that I had forgotten possibly the most important fact in the Bible: God is love. And if God is love, then even this particular command must be motivated by love. We were created to have fellowship with the Lord, and He greatly desires that kind of relationship with each of us. However, there’s one big problem. He is holy—so holy that He can’t even look upon evil; and—you guessed it—we, by nature, are evil. that doesn’t make for too high a rating on the compatibility charts. The only way we can have fellowship with Him is if by some miracle we become holy.
And here is the miracle: God loved us so much that He sacrificed His own Son so that by the shedding of Jesus’ precious, innocent blood we can be cleansed. By faith, His holiness becomes ours.
There’s no reason to settle for anything less than that glorious, holy fellowship, for even when we stumble and wander far from him, He always waits to forgive and welcome us home.
Hebrews 9:11-14.
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