Matthew West – It’s Now, Or Never

I had just finished a book that I was writing about discovering my identity called, Hello My Name Is (buy), and as I began writing songs or the new record, I was sort of in this phase of, “I had written and shared a lot about my story in that book,” and it was coming out of that experience that made me start to think about some areas of my life where I felt like God was challenging me to go deeper. He seemed to be saying at every turn, “Look in this area of your life. You don’t even know I have so much more for you than you’ve even tapped in to, but you’re settling for less than what I’m offering you.”

So, one of the things that I wrote about in the book was about being a “professional Christian.” What a “professional Christian” [to me] is somebody who lives their personal faith in Christ in a public spotlight, and that’s been my life. I’m a preacher’s kid, so all eyes were always on me, and now I’m a Christian singer and writer, and all eyes are [still] on me, and I guess there’s a danger that I’ve noticed when you get to the point where you’re more concerned about “looking the part” than you are about actually living the part. And this is where “All In” came from.

So, the heart behind the songs that I started to write for this album was just, “Okay, how can I fight that at every turn? How can I fight the, ‘I’m trying to look the part’ of being a great dad and husband, but am I really digging in and being proactive about my time with my family? Or, am I kind-of ‘phoning it in,’ more concerned about making sure I get to watch Monday Night Football?” You know what I mean?

The West Family in 2015

That was kind of the genesis of this idea of just going, “Lord, I know you’ve got more for me. Show me the areas of my life where You’re calling me to go deeper.” So, the practicality of that is basically probably summed up in this one thought: I think that every single one of us, at any moment in our lives has at least one area of our lives where we could be going deeper, where we could be living with more abandon, where we could be taking God’s hand and really letting Him lead us into a fuller life. [For some], it’s could be their personal relationship with Christ? I know that my audience that I sing to, a lot of them are like me that have been in church for a long time, but maybe it’s just become really “second nature.” It’s just, “what we do.” It’s not necessarily who we are. Maybe it’s little things that seem trivial but are actually monumental like, “Am I letting my quiet time with the Lord slip?” And then it’s things that I’ve started to write about on this record were in the areas of, “How can I go all-in inside the four walls of my own home?”

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