More than Anything

Album: Be One (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • Natalie Grant sings on this worshipful prayer song about turning to Christ in times of desperate need. Grant told NewReleaseToday the story behind the track.

    "'More Than Anything' was written by Sam and Becca Mizell, who I wrote 'King of the World' with. When they brought me the song, I remember how I was particularly moved by it because it was an answer to how we can treat God like Santa Claus sometimes. We hope we are on the "nice list." When we find ourselves in the middle of tragedy or something unknown, all of a sudden our prayer life improves. We come to God when we need something from Him. There was something about this song that convicted me at the time of recording it. I wasn't going through anything major at the time; it was just an overall conviction in my life.

    They told me the story of where the song came from. One of Becca's dearest friends was dying from breast cancer, and this was her prayer. She had prayed for God's healing, but she wanted Jesus more than anything that He could do for her. She wanted Him. That was her perspective. I recorded the vocals and felt like this song would minister to people who received a scary medical diagnosis. Bernie and I prayed that over this song, for people to know that they need God more than anything."
  • The song's message hit home to Grant when she was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years after the release of Be One. She recalled: "I had just gone for my annual physical, and previously I updated my forms that my father had thyroid cancer for my family medical history. They did an ultrasound on my thyroid that morning, and they found tumors that they thought looked malignant. I was at Momentum getting ready to sing this song at Night of Joy. I'll never forget that moment. I showed up to rehearse this song and sang 'help me want the Healer more than the healing,' and I burst into tears."

    Grant added: "At that moment I had been told I might have malignant cancerous tumors on my thyroid, I actually did want healing from God, and I thought I couldn't sing this song. It was a strange moment where things felt like they were spinning out of control. Then I had to remember that two years earlier when I recorded this song, God knew what I would be walking through, and even though I prayed it would help other people, it was also for me."

    She concluded: "I'll never forget that moment. It became a catalyst of God really revealing to me that I had become transactional in my relationship with Christ: 'I'll do this for You, and I need You to do this for me.' That issue with my health brought me to the place of remembering that my outcome doesn't determine His goodness. No matter what is happening with a diagnosis, God is still good. I need to seek His face before I seek His hands. That's the best outcome of everything I walked through with my health issue, and that's what this song is about."

Comments: 1

  • AnonymousLoving God more than what He does for us, or can do for us, or how He makes us feel is one of the hardest lessons a real Christian has to learn at some point. This song is one that I play from time to time as a "reset" song when I want everything to just go away--it reminds me that As long as I have God, the outcome of my situation will be good, as Job said.... either here on earth or in that day that I stand before Him and hear well done-- but only if I love Him most!
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