This song was written by Israel Houghton. Israel leads at Lakewood Church in Houston, TX. He and his band New Breed are known for eclectic, cross-cultural praise and worship music and high-energy performances. With 2002's Real, rife with funky 1970s influences, and this year's Live From Another Level, the group has continued to break new ground with their musical combination of the fresh and the familiar. At New Breed's retreat two years ago, we were kind of defining our group mission. We had a moderator help us think that through, and I assumed it would be kind of straightforward. Here's why we exist. It's great. God bless you, everybody. Have a good day. But God hijacked our whole time together. The moderator handed us a sheet listing promises of God and ways we're described in the Bible. He instructed us to circle the one that stood out the most to us. So there are all these statements—"I'm more than a conqueror through Christ." "Nothing can separate me from God," Romans 8, all this stuff. And then I see the statement, "I am a friend of God." Without even thinking of it, I circled that. So the moderator went around the room asking everyone what we'd circled. When it was my turn, before I could even say "I am a…" I just started weeping, uncontrollably. I grew up in a fairly legalistic home. My parents loved God, and they did the very best they could with what they knew. They came from a very discipleship-oriented, fairly heavy-handed way of doing kingdom work. So I would have more easily said, "I am afraid of God" than "I am a friend of God." The view I had of God was dysfunctional, almost like he was looking for opportunities to punish me. That was more what I caught than what was taught. But the more I said "I am a friend of God," the more that old, condemning view was purged from my life. I gained a healing sense of God saying, "I want to know you." Click on the link below to hear Israel talk about this song, and to hear an audio file of the song.
http://www.theheartofworship.com/stories/Story-229-FriendofGod-Israel.mp3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu4PWSnVabg
