“It’s hard to come up with words that depict the magnitude of Christ’s love – the depth and width of it,” said Bethel Music's Jeremy Riddle. He ultimately arrived at "furious" as the closest expression he could get regarding his experience with a divine love.

“‘Furious’ doesn’t work outside of the context of love," Riddle explained. "We tend to translate the word as angry, but I see it as a super-powerful force; stronger, deeper, broader than our vocabulary can fully describe."

So if each new album should serve as the next chapter in an artist’s life story, Furious is a well-suited project title for a man who’s spent much of the past year struggling to accurately express his experience of a passionate God amidst some life transition.

NRT's Bill Lurwick took some time to talk about the new album, and what fury looks like in the context of love.

So your latest solo project is called Furious. How long you been putting this together?

It feels like forever. This is probably the longest span of time in between records. It’ll be probably two and a half years since the last release, with lots of different hiccups in there. It took a while to fall into place, and it's interesting. These songs are fairly eclectic, but I think ultimately as I’ve listened to it, the body of work, I like it. I think there’s a cohesiveness there and it works for me.

Let’s talk about the journey for the songs on Furious. Where did they come from?

My life has been sifted in a lot of ways by a lot of situations. It’s funny how favor and success can challenge you in ways that failure never will--in terms of who you are, what you’re to be about, the gifts that you’re given, what are they for, how are you to steward them correctly and all these kinds of things. I left a junior high job--a very stable, normal, kind of existence, and music was a very small part of what I did. But then I jumped out into full music ministry, knowing that I was never completely interested in only doing music. I realize that there was a broader call in my life when it came to ministry and what my life was going to be centered on, but we knew we were in a period of transition.

So for like three or four years, we jumped off and began to do music full time, and we began to walk through a bunch of open doors. We had a radio single that kind of randomly fell together that ministered in parts of the Church that I’d never ministered in before. It was very, very unfamiliar territory for me. Events that many seasoned people are very accustomed to were very awkward for me. I’d be doing stuff at festivals and not really knowing what I was doing or even what the festival was about or what my role was.

So, all this kind of stuff was beginning to be challenged in me. I think the struggle with so many artists--in both mainstream and Christian music--is that if you’re not careful, the industry and its needs and what it is about will begin to define you. It can be a struggle to be true to who you are.

Anyway, that’s a whole other conversation.


Jeremy, it’s a theme that I continue to hear lately from a lot of people that I interview that they don’t want to get caught up in the industry. They really just want to worship God and they wish things were simpler. Is it something you’ve channeled into Furious on stuff like "One Thing Remains"?

Absolutely. The thing about it is that there’s nothing wrong with the industry. The industry is not the problem. The problem is people. You have to be solidly rooted and established in who you are and who God has called you to be and to be true to that regardless of how many records that sells or how well it goes over at different events or venues. You just have to say, “This is who I am. This is what I’m after,” and you’ve got to let the chips fall where they’re going to fall.

The pressure and desire to be successful, I think, is probably the thing that unravels people. It's funny, "success" kind of fell into my lap out of nowhere. I did nothing to attempt to earn that or achieve it. It's kind of like grace. God’s approval--His favor--is upon me and it’s a free gift. But you can still slowly become a person who’s then attempting to earn what was a gift.

The record is really just a journey of writing. I do write corporate worship songs from time to time, but that’s not the main thing. The thing that I want people to walk away from my record is being able to encounter God--to build a relationship with Him through these songs and for them to experience His heart for them. It’s basically like creating words for their devotional life, for their prayer life and for any heart that’s hungry to know God, to run after Him, to experience His presence, to live in His presence.

These songs are really for them because that’s where they flow out of for me.

You’re really working out your salvation here, not working for. People get hung up on that. People always get hung up on that verse in Philippians chapter 2 there. We’re working out our salvation, not working for our salvation. Tell me about the title cut "Furious" first of all.

"Furious" is kind of is what it is. Obviously the title’s a little interesting and already maybe a bit controversial in terms of people not really knowing exactly what that means, but it’s furious within the context of love. I think so many times when we’re talking about the love of God or really encountering any aspect of God, the language that we’re searching for, we kind of run out of words to be able to describe it. I remember just pondering it. Actually some of the lines fall out of a G.K. Chesterton quote about the furious love of God.

That’s actually a great descriptor. It resonated with me even though it can be confusing. It’s a force like no other, and I think when we try and describe how powerful it is and just what a force it is, words kind of fall short. But that word furious just grabbed me as a description. Not of anger or anything, but just sheer passion. The sheer passion of His love and His desire for His people. It’s remarkable and really that whole song is built around His love. It’s just what it is. This is what it’s doing here. This is how it sustains us. This is our position in Him because of His great love.

It is obviously the title track of the record and I just think it is the defining moment in the record.


Tell me about the song that may have been the most personal, most difficult song for you to put on the record.

That’s good. Well, there’s different kinds of personal. There’s the raw personal. There’s the intimate personal. I’ve just kind of gotten used to being raw. It seems to be not much of a difficulty. I think it’s harder to play songs live. Once I play them live I’ll be able to answer this question a lot better, but in the studio it’s a far easier thing.

I’d say probably "Lord My Shepherd" is the one. It obviously is a very, very well-known song lyrically, but the heart of where that flows from is basically I was in a lot of pain, emotional pain. I’d had some crazy intense relational falling out stuff and it was with people that were very, very close to me and it was just a very, very difficult time and I just realized my heart is in a ton of pain.

I began to realize just how much pain there was and I remember flying back on a plane from some event somewhere and I was just thinking on pain and all the ways that I’d dealt with it in the past. Obviously every human being has some of a coping mechanism that they have to deal with their pain, and most of ours are very benign and it’s not like we’re turning to hard drugs or alcohol or that kind of thing, although definitely some people do. But it can be food. It can be TV. It can be checking out to a sitcom or whatever it is--the smallest things we do.

I just remember going, “Lord, the cry of my heart in this season is not to turn to anything else, but I really want to turn to you.” Sometimes I think God doesn’t feel as tangible as you want Him to feel in moments of deep pain and the comforts around you seem very immediate. I can access that immediately, but waiting on the Lord, even though that’s really the only lasting healing for pain, it’s not always the easiest thing to do. And I remember just saying, “This is something I want to discipline myself to do. I want to take the pain, the anxiety, the worry, the hurt that I’m feeling and I want to take it to you in prayer and I want to wait on the Lord and I want to experience your healing because you’re the only one that can heal. You’re the only one who can put these wounds together. You’re the only one that can make me right again.”

That’s really the heartbeat of that song and there’s something powerful about declaring over our lives who the Lord is and what He does. He is our shepherd. He does know our needs. He never forsakes us. He is the one that feeds us, clothes us, gives water to the thirst of our souls, our spirits, our bodies. That’s probably one of the most more intimate, the more personal ones on that record.

Thanks, Jeremy, for spending time with us at NewReleaseTuesday.

You bet. Love it. Thanks so much Bill.