Ever since Monica and I moved to Maui full-time early in 2015, I am rarely able to sleep until sunrise. It seems my body is conditioned to a perpetual state of jetlag.

But rather than fight it, I have embraced the early get-up. Typically, I rise well before dawn, make myself a coffee, and grab my phone and air pods on my way out the door to the lanai. I hit the “shuffle” button on my long list of favorite worship songs and look forward to learning what the Lord wants me to hear today while the caffeine courses through my veins and I watch for the occasional shooting star.

Often, however, I catch myself contemplating life’s complexities (even those in retirement) rather than considering God’s blessings so artfully articulated in the music – treating the message as a lovely background to my self-absorbed thoughts about the demands of the day forthcoming.

This morning, however, God insisted that I pay attention.

As I briefly waited for the java to cool, the initial track began to play. It was one of my favorite melodies from the Christian band Tenth Avenue North, a song called “You Are More.” As I began to sing along in my head, I realized that my sporadic recollection of the words betrayed the fact that despite hearing this tune dozens of times, I had not given those words sufficient consideration. I was going to change that this morning.

As I was soon to learn, Amazon Music apparently has a periodic glitch when paired with a Bluetooth device. The song being played will become garbled before swiftly skipping to the next track. Less than sixty seconds into the song, this glitch reared its ugly head. Typically, the surrounding darkness dissuades me from fussing with my phone and, instead, I simply move on to the next track. Not today, however.

After trying to replay the song again only to be struck by the glitch at precisely the same point, I was sufficiently miffed that I deleted it from my library and planned to re-download it in the hope that the issue would resolve.

I searched for the track, found it and again added it to my library and playlist. I hit PLAY.

Within moments, I realized that I had downloaded a live version rather than the studio version that had previously resided on my playlist. This one, however, played flawlessly.

You are more than the choices that you’ve made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You’ve been remade.

The chorus of this song was a reminder that while the Lord has given us free will to make bad choices, He does not condemn us for them. God’s love is so great that He sent His only Son to die on the cross so that “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16) – knowing that we are incapable of living sinless lives.

As the applause died down and I anticipated the next tune being shuffled to my now-attentive ears, I learned at that moment why God had wanted me to hear the live version of this song.

He wanted me to hear the words of the band’s lead singer who, upon conclusion of the song, elaborated on the message to his audience. In his remarks, he used some colorful language to accurately characterize most of us not as saints but as “screwups.” He reminded me that, as a screwup, I make bad choices. But those choices do not condemn me. Nor do good choices save me. I am saved only by the grace of God through faith – and to believe otherwise is simply the proud and erroneous notion that I can save myself with good decisions.

The most impactful words of this song underscore this truth:

‘Cause this is not about what you’ve done,
But what’s been done for you.

Jesus gave his life as a propitiation for our sins – so that we may be cleansed of our poor choices, our mistakes, our problems. All we need to do is confess that sin, repent of it, and know that we are saved not by anything we do ourselves, but through faith by the grace of God.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

2 Corinthians 5:17