By India McCarty
Singer-songwriter Dave Barnes is sharing how his faith has impacted his time in the music industry.
“God in His kindness kind of kept opening these doors that I kept walking through, because there was no pedigree in what I’m doing now in my family, there was none,” Barnes said during an appearance on “Jesus Calling.”
Barnes grew up as a pastor’s kid and didn’t truly fall in love with music until he attended Middle Tennessee State University.
“A lot of my faith has come from these moments in my life of just seeing God accomplish these crazy things sort of in spite of me,” he said.
One of those moments? The creation of Barnes’ hit song, “God Gave Me You.”
The artist explained that he prayed for encouragement and later ended up writing “God Gave Me You.” Barnes passed it along to his producer, not thinking that it would go anywhere. Shortly after recording the track, a Christian radio promoter called Barnes and said, “Hey, I heard Dave’s record, and I think God could use a smash for the Christian space.”
“Now I was like, ‘That’s not my space,’” Barnes said. “And I felt so clearly that God was like, ‘Dave, when you pray for answers, you don’t get to qualify the answers I give you. That’s not how this works.’ And I was like, ‘Touché Lord. Well played.’”
Country star Blake Shelton would go on to record “God Gave Me You,” turning it into “a monster hit.”
Related: How Songwriter, Comedian David Barnes Uses ‘Boredom’ to Create Content
“That prayer was one of those moments in your life where God goes, ‘Hey, I’m going to just blow this thing out of the water,’” Barnes shared. “Then it sort of opened up to me writing for other people, which was also a blessing because we were just starting our family and I wanted to be home more. So God just answered that one prayer with a million answers in that season.”
Barnes spoke further about how his faith impacts his music during a conversation at Nashville’s Belmont University.
“It’s been a really beautiful grace to me that I didn’t have to write Christian songs,” he explained, “If I just wrote songs that were true to my world views, then they would be Christian innately.”
The father of three also spoke to Nashville Lifestyles about how he balances his music career with his home life.
“I’m always going to err leaning toward family,” he shared. “As long as that’s good, the other will work itself out, I think.”
Barnes’ story of how God answered his prayer for encouragement is a reminder that God’s plan might look a little different than we expected.
Read Next: How Colton Dixon is Trusting God’s Plan: ‘I Owe Everything that I Have Done to God’
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