From my first listen, I wanted to tell others about this great new album All Is Not Lost by The Brilliance. The New York-based duo is comprised of David Gungor and John Arndt. This album immediately reminded me of my favorite emotional indie worship artists like Gungor, All Sons & Daughters and Citizens & Saints, who have released my favorite "gourmet" worship songs and albums the past few years.

All Is Not Lost is a great collection of confessional and authentic expressions of faith. There are no filler tracks, and this is easily one of my top "gourmet" albums of the year. If you want to experience an uplifting, soul-stirring, stunning and worshipful album, look no further than The Brilliance. My favorite songs are "Gravity of Love," "Night Has Passed," "Turning Over Tables," "Hear The Prayers," "Will We Ever Rise," "Who is Jesus" and "See The Love," which has quickly become one of my all-time favorite songs. I had the chance to speak with David Gungor about "See The Love."

Please tell me the personal story behind this song.

This was one of the first songs we knew was going to be on the album. We wrote it during the season of Advent, because one of the themes we wanted to hit was fighting cynicism.  For me, it's very easy to look at the world with a cynical view, and you hear cynicism from both sides of an argument quite easily. On one end, we wanted to give ourselves a message of hope in a more hopeful and optimistic way. However, we also wanted to be realistic about the pain that causes the cynicism and the trauma that starts it. 

The song starts out with "every day we go to war again, we assume we know so much more than them, before we hear what they have to say." That's just humanity when we think something is wrong, how we respond, especially in this age of social media. I know that for John, and he mentions it in the podcast, our engagement with humanity with our cellphones, our iPhones, it's a way that we can feel like we are in community but not actually be in community. You can say nice things or hurtful things, and there's no actual real person in front of you. We continued on the theme of our last album Brother. 

When we talk about even the idea of loving God, I grew up as a Pastor's kid, so the way I would talk about God, the only language I had was teenage love language: "I'm so in love with Jesus." When you get older and you have friends outside of the faith, sometimes that language doesn't always connect with people, and when it comes down to it, where do you see God, and where do you meet God? Is God an imaginary figure that you've invited into your heart? Or is God the real Presence of God? After the resurrection people see Jesus, and they don't at first recognize that they are seeing Jesus. The scales fall from their eyes, and they realize they are seeing Him. Thomas doesn't believe until he sees Jesus' scars and touches His wounds.

Which Bible verses connect to the message of the song?

1 John 3:16 (NIV): This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV): 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."
 
1 John 4:21 (NIV): And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

John 8:10-12 (NKJV): "When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, 'Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?' She said, 'No one, Lord.' And Jesus said to her, 'Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.' Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, 'I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.'"

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV): "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts."

2 Corinthians 10:2-5 (NIV): "I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world; we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

What is the takeaway message?

For me, there was something resurrected in my faith when I started to see God in the other. Specifically, the other that I wasn't expecting. In those moments, God's Presence met me. It's funny, and it reflects the Parables. As a kid, I would read the Parables and think I was supposed to figure out whatever the lesson was and that I was the good guy. However, that's reading the Parables through an anthropological lens, not a theological lens, because the Parables always speak to the nature of God first. For example, with the lost coin or the Good Samaritan, I'm not the Good Samaritan, I'm the one needing rescuing, and usually the one who is going to rescue me is a person that I'm least expecting to rescue me. 

Being open towards the other helps you be open towards God. It gave me real language for how to say in Scripture, for example, how do you remain in God's love? You remain in God's love when you love the other. There's something about that which gave me a real, tangible sense of Presence. This is what it means when I tell my children God is love, and we love God. How do we know that we love God? If I'm not able to love my neighbor, and I'm not able to love others, how am I able to say that I love God? 

For us, from a biblical lens, when we say "I want to see the love," to see is the true high watermark of Christian discipleship. The ability to see. Jesus would always walk around, and He would see the tax collector, the prostitute, the fisherman, and He would say "follow Me." He would see them. First of all, being able to see people and their humanity and giving them dignity. Jesus was always giving dignity to people, and He created equality. For us, saying "I want to see the love, and I want to know that love is all around you" is really for the most part that we get in an echo chamber of beliefs or friends, and we mute those we don't want to talk to or despise them and not listen to them. If I want to see someone, I need to acknowledge their dignity, and I need to be willing to listen. Being willing to listen is the start of peacemaking. That's what we want our music to be about. We believe that's what the Kingdom is about. It's a biblical message about seeing.

Lyrics:
Every day we go to war again
We assume we know so much more than them
Before we hear what they have to say
 
Headline breaks and we start to hate again
Calling them names again
We give our peace away
 
I hope they see it
Cause I wanna see it
I hope we believe it
 
I wanna see the love
All around you, all around you
I wanna know, I wanna know
That love
Is all around you it's all around
 
Day by day
Hope fades away and then
We know that there is pain within 
We cannot medicate
 
Learn, learn to feel
Learn to begin again
Open our eyes again
To see our brothers pain
 
I hope they see it
Cause I wanna see it
I hope we believe it
 
I wanna see the love
All around you all around you
I wanna know I wanna know
That love is all around you it's all around
See how it lights you up

These songs will certainly connect with listeners and showcase the multi-talented band's trademark balance of vocal tenderness, lyrical intensity, beautiful and stirring musical arrangements and, above all, songs with a sense of hope and inspiration. All Is Not Lost is all about finding peace by living out the words of the songs, convicting me to cry out "I want to see the love" in my fellow brothers and sisters. When I first heard this song, I was immediately hooked by the message, knowing that it is connected to the two greatest commandments from Jesus to us: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind," and "love your neighbor as yourself." 

As the hymn sings, "They'll know we are Christians by our love." The band really says it well with their album and this song. God explains love in 1st John 4:19: "We love because he first loved us." God's love was given at an outrageous cost, the life of His only begotten Son. Not only should we love God because He first loved us, but we should also love others unconditionally because while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This song is also about realizing how important it is to have your eyes open to the needs of others around you, to serve others and care about people more than you think about your selfishness and doubts. This song connects with the saying by Saint Francis of Assisi: "Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary." When you put yourself under a microscope and examine whether you really believe all of the words of this great song, you'll find that it will challenge your faith and how closely you are walking with God. We have an opportunity to be better followers of Jesus by living out the words of this song: "I hope they see it, 'cause I want to see it. I hope we believe it."

I have been listening to "See The Love" daily as a prayer and balm for my soul in this uncertain time we live in. "I want to see, I want to see the love all around you, I want to know that love is all around you" is the refrain of the beautiful and prayerful song, which is in essence the thesis statement of this Christ-centered album. The poignant lyrics begin with "every day we go to war again, we assume we know so much more than them, before we hear what they have to say." The song is so spot-on with its observations of how we live and hurt others with our lack of love. My prayer for this song and album is that all of us can make these the words we live by. Like David and John, "I want to know that love is all around you, see how it lights you up." Amen to that!

Watch the music video below.