Thambos

I’ve been living in thambos lately. It is the Greek word meaning “amazement.” I’ve added a new song to my playlist that has just struck to the core of me. I cannot get it out of my head, the music or the words.

It is “Amazed” by Kutless. Here’s the interview from Praise Charts. (Sept. 10, 2010)

Kutless’ guitarist, Nick DePartee, speaks with NRT contributor Kevin Davis about their latest single, “Amazed.”

Nick DePartee: “God wants us to be in awe of Him and live our lives in such amazement of His grace.”
The heart of worship is something the band as a whole is very in tune with and they love bringing that to the forefront, sharing and coming together as one to give glory to God. With the new album, listeners will be able to sing along to the classics as well as add some new favorites into their time of worship.

I co-wrote “Amazed” with Phil Wickham. I started writing the song about two years ago when I moved to Nashville. I had written the first verse and just put it away. I thought maybe I’d use it someday. We started writing for the new record, It Is Well, and I went out to San Diego to work with Phil Wickham and our producer Pete Kipley on some songs together. Pete started playing a song he was working on and I thought about how it was in the same key as the song I had started writing the year before. Sure enough, we were able to blend the ideas together. We kept hearing the word “amazed” and were in that state of awe about who God is. We get caught up when we write worship songs in that we want it to be real to us. e don’t want our songs to sound cliché or not real to us. We found that it was really challenging to write completely real and sincere worship songs. We prayed to God that the lyrics be real to us. We were blown away by the process, especially watching God move and letting Him move us to write how we felt about Him. God is so much bigger than anything in my life. I just want to be in a reverent fear of God.

My favorite line from the song is “So high above, our greatest song but still You call and we will come.” I remember that Phil and I were sitting on the patio and thinking that line really reflected how we felt as songwriters about our songs, that God is above any song that we could ever write.

I hope this speaks to your soul as much as it has mine.