Awake My Soul

Sound is the organizing idea. "There is a sound I love to hear," the song begins, and it is "the sound of the Savior's robe as He walks into the room where people pray." David Funk and Kalley Heiligenthal add a pointed twist: where the congregation hears praises or worship, "He hears faith." The detail turns a gathering into an encounter and makes the room itself the setting.

The refrain wakes the singer up: "Awake my soul and sing, sing His praise aloud." A second verse says that "the sound of His people on their knees" is "a sound that changes things," and calls the sleepy to "wake up, you slumbering," because "it's time to worship Him." The language is communal, with prayer treated as an action that opens the way for God to move.

Results follow in the next lines: "where stood a wall now stands a way," and "where every promise is amen." Even the dark side is named, with "the bowels of hell begin to shake." The ending is a call to open the doors, "let the King of glory enter in." Psalm 57:8 supplies "awake my soul," Psalm 24:7 the King of glory, and 2 Corinthians 1:20 the promises that are yes and amen in Christ.