INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST
Michael W. Smith Relives "Dark Days", Personal "Miracle" with Sovereign
By Hannah Goodwyn
Senior Producer
CBN.com
– Three-time Grammy winner Michael W. Smith has more to say and offer to Christian music fans, believers in Christ and non-believers alike. His new worship album, Sovereign, opens up a new chapter for him, as a creative artist and worshiper.
In a recent interview with CBN.com, Smith recalls making Sovereign, filtering more than 100 songs down to the 12 that appear on the record, but also about his own "Miracle" of overcoming his "dark days of drugs".
Hannah Goodwyn: How do you see what your new song "Miracle" says as it pertains to your personal life? What miracle has God done in your life that you want to share with people?
Michael W. Smith: Oh gosh, I should have been dead. I almost died a few times during my dark days of drugs, just bad choices. I got rescued after being in the gutter. I could be in the street, gosh, the list goes on. The list goes on just based on the faithfulness of God. I had a good mom and dad. I had a praying mom and dad. And you know what, for those who don't, I believe that God can father you and God can mother you, so my mom was a perfect example of that. She got left on the doorstep when she was eight years old with her two younger sisters and brother, and her real mother walked out and never came back. So my mom could have been a mess, but she just chose to let God mother her and she's awesome. There's just so many factors, so many miracles happened. I am a miracle. I'm a walking miracle at the end of the day.
Goodwyn: Do you think about that time long ago especially while singing this song?
Smith: You know what, I probably need to go back and reflect on it more. I mean, I think about it from time to time, especially during interviews. Sometimes people want to bring up what happened back then, "How did you get deceived? How did you get rescued?" So I sort of go back and obviously when I'm answering the question I have to play that again through my mind. It doesn't freak me out. I think probably the biggest thing is just going, Oh my gosh, how stupid I was and how I bought into the lie and almost lost my life over it. So it's just scary. What could have been and what is, it's remarkable to me.
Goodwyn: The album's first single, "You Won't Let Go," has the declarative and hopeful line, "You are the anchor for my soul." How'd you get to know the depth and the weight of that statement, finding the solid rock of Christ?
Smith: I think it's just growing up. It's growing up and hopefully getting a little wiser although I'm still on the journey and got a ways to go. You just start to realize that all these other things, like record sales or the house you live in or what kind of car you drive, it's just all vapor. It's like a blade of grass. And Yahweh's up there who knows how high, I'm looking at five billion stars, and who am I, I mean, really? And so I know that He's sovereign and He's in control.
Then all of this other stuff, being successful, you find out the other day it just doesn't last. It brings temporary success, and it's fun and all that, but some of the most miserable people I know are people who've got millions of dollars that are not centered on Christ and that don't have any faith. So I just think you have to learn where your hope lies, and you start to rest in it a little more every day. Stay with it, because that's the only thing that's going to get you through, especially the struggles.
Goodwyn: Tell me a little bit about that concept of worship being a two-way street in relation to some of the new songs on Sovereign, about how it's not just us singing to God or about God, but hearing from Him.
Smith: There's a bunch of songs that pertain to that, but if this thing really is true, which I believe it is, we're supposed to be friends with God. This is all relational. I mean, this is like, walking every day in the Holy Spirit is just comforting to you, and walking beside Him in everything that you do and everywhere you go, and that's what I automatically think of "You Won't Let Go". I think about Romans 8, the inspiration for "You Won't Let Go", and nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing. I mean there's nothing. No matter what comes your way, He'll never turn His back on you. He'll never leave you or forsake you. That's the truth.
How much we forget that. We get distracted and we get down and we forget, which is a big, number one goal of Satan. He's the great deceiver. He wants to just take you down. So yes, for me, there are a whole lot of people out there struggling, and they need to hear that song. They just need to know that nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Goodwyn: Is there another song that's a favorite of yours on your album?
Smith: "Sky Spills Over" is probably my favorite artistic song of the record. But if there's a song for our time, I think it would be "Sovereign," maybe it's just because I just know so many people who are struggling, and a lot of those people were people who have been hurt. I sang "Sovereign" over us yesterday at one of my best friend's, the son's funeral who took his own life days ago. I mean… Whoa… when I played him that song the other day he says, "You have to sing that at my son's funeral. You have to sing that." And so I did, yeah. There you go.
Goodwyn: News is that you're doing a world tour next year. How excited are you to get out there again, given your amazing experience in Bahrain not long ago?
Smith: I loved playing outside of America; I have to be honest. I love playing in America too, but you know, there's something fresh about going into a place that you've never had a faith-to-faith concert, or if you want to label it a Christian concert, whatever. It's never been done in Bahrain.
I cried through half of it. It was so overwhelming. You just sensed the presence of God in such a powerful way in a predominantly Muslim country. But just you've gone into a country and you've sewn something into a country that potentially could maybe change the course of that country. You've encouraged the body of Christ in Bahrain.
That excites me today like it did back then. I'll write a book about it one day. It was just miracle after miracle how we even got into the country, and to be invited by the king. And then Eastern bloc countries, Romania, Poland, and Bucharest, Budapest, Latvia, Estonia, I've been to all those places. They were under Communist rule for so long and then you show up, and they are so—their enthusiasm is completely off the chart. They're so grateful that you're there, and they sing every word to every song, and they're all in. So hey, who wouldn't want to play before an audience like that, you know?
 Hannah Goodwyn serves as the Entertainment producer for CBN.com.
For more articles, visit Hannah's bio page.
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