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Gabby spent some time talking with Matt Maher about his new song “Wait” – and the Spiritual lessons he’s been learning as he “walks the walk.” Enjoy the podcast or read the transcription below!
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Gabby: Hey everybody. I’m Gabby at LifeSongs from the Afternoon Show. Get to sit here with Matt Maher. So excited for us to get to know him just a bit better. Matt, I’ve been listening to your song about waiting this new song that just came out so excited about that.
I feel like as believers waiting is a topic that is kind of uncomfortable.
Matt Maher: I would say I’m a husband and dad. I’ve been married 15 years this year, and I have three kids, and so a lot of ideas like this are sort of happening on the way is, I guess is the best way to say it, because when you’re a parent, you really don’t get much of a break.
Yeah.
Being a dad and being a songwriter. You know, a lot of it is just leaning into God saying, okay, listen, you gotta talk to me on the way here. But I’ve been in a season where like everyone, I think some of it’s like our relationship with these things called cell phones and smartphones and social media has become pretty invasive increasingly, and.
It gets hard because it ultimately, as good as it can be, it can be a really big distraction. It can distract us from praying. It can distract us from our relationships. It can distract us from whatever tasks we’re actually trying to do in the present moment in the real world. And so we had, we went to New York a year ago for a couple days to go see a musical and to just kind of be a family and see the city eat food.
You know, you can walk 20,000 steps in a day and go to a museum and like eat some really great food. So it, it’s, it was, it’s kind of a fun combination. And uh, we were walking to a musical and I remember I was just holding my daughter’s hand and. Just being in the moment and grateful for the moment and then looking up and seeing a billboard and there was this white billboard and it just said it can wait.
And it’s one of those things where I say songs for a lot of songwriters, particularly Christian music and worship music, but all songwriting is a form of catching revelation. You’re revealing something about you and what you’ve been through your life experiences, your circumstances, and it’s just a combination of the words and the music itself.
It’s become a way in which you’re speaking of something that truly is transcendent, like a deeper truth. Before the song, I just had the phrase of that, of it can wait, it sort of became more of a personal prayer. The book of Isaiah chapter 40, and it says, those who wait upon the Lord, he’ll renew their strength.
They’ll run, not grow weary, walk in, not grow faint. They’ll rise up on wings like eagles, which is kind of what became the bridge of the song. And then the, the verses of it really just started being more of a reflection on, I think what a lot of are, a lot of things that people are struggling with right now.
Fear, anxiety, our imaginations being hijacked, creating false narratives about ourself and the world around us. And I just think that the gospel and the scriptures. I have so much to say that like those experiences are part of the human experience. People have been experiencing these things for millennia.
Mm-hmm. And that’s why God and his goodness gave us his word, so that we can be reminded of that and also be encouraged. To have access to, you know, that throne of grace as Paul says in scripture that we can run to.
Gabby: Thank you so much for sharing. Me and my husband have been in a little bit of a, a hard season ministry wise. Hmm. And my coworkers, ’cause we’re, my husband’s a pastor here in the area and my, uh, coworkers sent me that song and they were like, you really need to like, listen, not just listen, but like you need to hear this.
Matt Maher: Wow.
Gabby: And it was really encouraging. And so I just wanna Thank you. I always appreciate when artists, ’cause I just feel like there’s something really special about music and about worship. Softens the heart and it really just gives us that space away from all those interruptions that you just spoke about.
So I just wanna say genuinely thank you so much for the authenticity that you show in your songwriting and the obedience.
Matt Maher: You are so welcome. Thank you so much.
Gabby: And you did talk a little bit about like the interruptions and the struggle and the battling with prioritizing. And I assume that’s very hard when you’re on the road, when you’re songwriting, when you also have a family.
There’s so many things. My husband and I were just talking at church with our congregation about just how hard it is in culture to prioritize and to take space away from your phone that’s constantly there, you know, battling for your attention. Can you give us some insight on what it looks to, uh, be intentional with rest in calling that you have?
Matt Maher: Yeah, that’s great. In my life, I’m realizing there are non-negotiables. And spending time with the Lord every morning just reading scripture and giving a bit of space, even if it’s five, 10 minutes in the morning. Yeah, just to start is something that anybody can consistently do. And inviting God into the details of your day is very, very important.
I think as you grow in your life and as the circumstances of your life change, your discernment has to change. So like I’m a songwriter right now and I actually haven’t had a ton of time to work on songs. I’ve been mostly with my family, spending time with my kids. But what I’ve been learning to do is to say, you know what, God, you’re the source of inspiration.
And you know that, you know, like Paul was a tent maker. So I always say like, my songs are my tenths in a way.
Gabby: I love that.
Matt Maher: Uh, and, you know, traveling and playing music is, you know, it’s the way, it’s the way that I’m providing for my family, but it’s like, I also know that you would never want me to lay down my family.
On any altar in the name of productivity or in the name of success or in the name of anything else. So I’m, I’m just learning to kind of surrender and trust. Think what you know, hopefully time in life gives you a bit of wisdom enough to look back and realize that the moments in your life when you were most productive, you worried the least about the way in which you’re able to provide for your family are actually the times when you were focused on that.
The least, and you were more focused on being present, more focused on being with your family, more focused on being available to God, and then operating from a mindset of abundance. And not scarcity. I think it’s the, the sense of being in right relationship with God, being in right relationship with those you’re most closest to attending to the responsibilities that, that, you know, that God actually wants you to put first.
Mm-hmm. Um, and then like, as you grow in life, you just learn, you have to invest your time differently. You know, I’m, I’m 50, we drove, uh, 11 hours from Buffalo where my in-laws live. Back to Nashville, and I got back last night at like, my goodness, seven 30. And if this was 10 years ago, I would’ve ate dinner with my family.
I would’ve hung out with my wife for a little bit, and then I would’ve came back here to my studio and worked till probably one in the morning. And now what I’m learning at this season of life is like, actually no, I need a better night’s rest and I’m gonna set my alarm and get up earlier. I’ve sort of transitioned from being a night, a night owl.
To like, hopefully a morning songbird.
Gabby: Love that.
Matt Maher: Yeah. That like,
Gabby: awesome.
Matt Maher: It just kind of happens in life. So like, I would say operating from a, from a place of rest I think is, it starts in here and it starts in here. And then I think the physical aspects of like orienting your schedule in a way. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah.
I mean I look at Sundays as the day of the week that I’m journeying towards. And the start of my week that I’m moving from, and I take that real seriously. So I think it’s really important to everyone. You gotta have one day, and if you’re in full-time ministry, it obviously is not gonna be Sunday.
Gabby: Nope.
Matt Maher: But you gotta find a day where you can really, truly, you’re not what you do. Mm-hmm. That’s not who you are. And that’s really, really, really important. I, there’s a book I’ve been reading called From Strength to Strength. Okay. By a guy named Dr. Arthur Brooks, and he is a professor at Harvard University who is a devout Christian.
He’s a fellow Catholic. He’s very vocal about his faith. Very open,
Gabby: super cool. Yeah,
Matt Maher: and he’s, I went to a conference last year on human happiness. He said a lot of people graduate from college and they think it’s like love things, use people, worship yourself. And he would say that’s the problem is it’s a bad orientation of things that we’re made to do.
So you should use things, you should love people, and you should worship God.
Gabby: Mm. I love that distinction. Yeah. It’s
Matt Maher: a very simple formula to happiness. Mm-hmm. Stuff doesn’t make you happy.
Gabby: Yeah, that’s true.
Matt Maher: Well, so more of it isn’t gonna make you happier. I find that I’m happiest in my life when things are rightly ordered, and a lot of that I remember in ministry is kind of having to delegate, but then having to just set things aside and really trust in God mm-hmm.
That he’s gonna provide in these areas where I need, I need provision.
Gabby: Thank you so much for sharing. I feel like when we choose to sacrifice those things, that should be lower on our priority list. The Lord is so good to bless us. Yes. Because upon God, I trust you so much. Mm-hmm. That I’m going to rightly order my life to honor you. And I feel like he operates more than out of abundance in our life.
And we reap such a reward that is more than we could have ever earned by. Operating in this workaholic mindset, this over productivity, like kind of that our culture’s kind of racing towards the next thing. How in your life, since you’ve gotten your life rightly ordered, and you’re really striving to honor the Lord, have you seen the Lord just really, have you just witnessed his work and your life and his reward in your life because you’ve chosen to prioritize this in a different way?
Matt Maher: Yeah. I mean, I think when Paul says things, you know, I urge you to offer up your bodies as a living sacrifice to God, and he talks about your mind being renewed.
Gabby: Mm-hmm.
Matt Maher: That it’s not just like metaphysical mumbo jumbo.
Gabby: Right?
Matt Maher: Like we actually think that grace does have a physiological aspect to. Improving our emotional and mental wellbeing.
It’s a bit of a mystery and we don’t fully understand it, but as Christians, we’re not just a bunch of people who sort of believe that there’s this world of science and that exists over there. And then there’s this world of faith that exists over there. Like it’s much more
Gabby: intertwined.
Matt Maher: The, the lines are much more intertwined and so, and so I think there’s just a basic thing of like as human beings, like when we live an ordered life.
Yeah. I mean, I would say this song, for me, weight is a song. It’s an example of like, God showing up and providing in a season where I even in the midst of struggling was like, I’m gonna make first things first.
Gabby: Yeah.
Matt Maher: And, um, because I hadn’t written a song in a while and, uh, and I’ve been trying, and I would say that when I am making these like little decisions.
I can see the fruits of it in the relationships that I have primarily with my family. I’m more patient with my kids and I’m, it’s not perfect. It’s not, doesn’t mean like my kids still don’t do things that like irritate me. It’s just that I have more margin, it feels like within myself. I have more capacity to patiently show grace in my life.
Towards those and others around me, I find myself less inwardly focused, which as an artist is something that, it’s kind of comes second. It’s kind of with, comes with the gift in a way, because that’s where the music comes from, is you have to kind of, like, Jesus kind of leads you into your heart. He takes you by the hand and leads you in and shows you stuff that, um, that you need to sing about or you need to, you know, sing your way out of.
And, um. Yeah, I mean, I just think that overall I’ve become a more patient person. I become a happier person, feel like I’m operating in the gifts of the spirit and exhibiting the fruits of the spirit. These aren’t just sort of like intangibles. These are very tangible things that our communities and the people that we live and work in see around us.
You know? And I think some of it’s hard because I think part of the problem is that we struggle with, if I see someone who looks like they’re having a hard time, I don’t know how to talk to them about it. Of like, how you doing?
Gabby: Yeah.
Matt Maher: And um, because, and I don’t know if it’s because church culture for a while was so maybe more sort of like morally confrontational versus the idea now that I think people are becoming more and more comfortable with sharing the fact that they’re not thriving,
Gabby: which I love the authentic Yes.
The realness. That’s
Matt Maher: real and that’s authentic.
Gabby: Yes. And,
Matt Maher: and it doesn’t mean that. That like God’s not part of your life, right? It just means that, okay, there’s a couple, maybe there’s a couple things here that are just out of alignment or out of order and we just need to make a few. Yeah.
Gabby: You know,
Matt Maher: God needs to make a few small adjustments.
Gabby: Mm-hmm.
Matt Maher: But it can have a pretty, pretty big effect.
Gabby: You’ve talked a lot about just family and how important that this is, these rhythms that you have with your family. Putting the Lord first. What role would you say as we’re here at, this is a Christian radio station, what role would you say that worship, having a culture of worship in your home plays?
Matt Maher: I travel and I literally talk and sing about Jesus.
Gabby: Yeah.
Matt Maher: And so kids watching you do that publicly, it’s not the same as around the dinner table? Mm-hmm. Or it’s not the same as when they can’t sleep, and then it’s the middle of the night and you’re. It’s kind of when, that’s what I’m realizing is that’s when they want to see it the most is in all these other areas.
And it’s like if I want my kids to have a relationship with God, God made me to be a model for them. If I want my kids to worship Jesus, I need to model what that looks like. I can’t expect them to just sort of have this incredible relationship with God if I don’t, if I’m not modeling it or I’m not talking about my own.
Mm-hmm. Or demonstrating that. Prayer is a very, very crucial part. You know, praying is like breathing and it’s something that we kind of like all can lose sight of. The importance of praying with my kids, praying over my kids. Music’s obviously a huge thing in our family, so we’re always singing songs and kids now are more and more are writing songs.
And so yeah, it’s a beautiful thing and the ability to sing that together and pray that together. It is very, very special. I’m trying to be home almost every Sunday now because I want my kids. To grow up seeing us worshiping God together, that it’s like, once again, if, if I’m trying to impress upon them, this is the most important yes.
That you could ever make with your life is a daily yes to Jesus, then I want to be around to demonstrate what that yes looks like, but also that we can say yes together as a family that we’re gonna make a decision. You know, every family is like a domestic church. It’s a small church, and so as a family together to say.
You know, loving God and loving neighbor is our North star and you know, this is what we’re doing as a family, you know, and not just one day a week, but all the time.
Gabby: So encouraging. Matt, thank you so much. I know that it’s so important to have conversations like this. The world can often be so discouraging.
And so I feel like just seeing families that are trying and ’cause we’re never gonna be perfect, but trying in this broken world, yes, for the effort of just like leaning on the Lord and his strength and those waiting periods and, uh, just making, making it a habit of worship and, uh, including that culture of just having a Sabbath.
I, I’m so encouraged by all of your just answers in this conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time and we really appreciate you, your music. Your ministry and just you sharing your gifts.
Matt Maher: Thank you so much.
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