CCM artist Matthew West has chosen his theme song for the 2024 election year, and it has little to do with Republicans, Democrats, or politics of any kind.
It has everything, though, to do with prayer.
West’s new song, Don’t Stop Praying, encourages the listener to continue praying even when all hope seems lost: “Keep on pounding on Heaven's door, and let your knees wear out the floor.” He recently wrote on Instagram that the song is his “mission statement” in 2024, “for my own faith journey.”
West told Christian Headlines the song is the perfect theme for 2024. It was released this month.
“I feel like we're headed into the great unknown in the year 2024,” West told Christian Headlines. “I remember in 2020 thinking, ‘Well, it can't get any worse than this.’ And then 2021 was like, ‘You ain't seen nothing.’ And then 2022 was like, ‘Watch this.’ It's just every year seems to be trying to beat out the year before as the craziest year ever. Of course, we're heading into an election year. As a follower of Christ, what if that was my mission -- to commit to prayer and commit to going deeper in my prayer life?”
The song, he added, acknowledges that prayer can feel hopeless but that it nevertheless is powerful.
“It's a call not to give up. It's an invitation to remember that the Bible says there's power in prayer, that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. And it's a reminder that we serve a God who hears us when we call on Him. I hope this song will be a special anthem for others as we enter this new year. Don't stop praying for your family. Don't stop praying for your prodigal. Don't stop praying for your financial situation. Don't stop praying for our nation. Don't stop praying for our leaders.”
Too often, West said, Christians get distracted by work and leisure and fail to set aside daily time with God. He knows this lesson first-hand, he added. In recent months, he has followed social media trends by participating in so-called “cold plunges” for his health, where an individual sits in ice-cold water for several minutes.
“And I'm proud of myself for it, right? And I felt good,” he told Christian Headlines. “But one day I was in the cold plunge, and I felt convicted like the Lord was saying, ‘Matthew, it seems like some days the hardest thing for you to do is to stop and pick up your Bible.’ As a follower of Christ, I need to remember [that] if your mission is to do at least one hard thing a day, I need to do that -- first things first. The hard thing is to sit down and be still and talk to God. And it's hard to pray -- especially when you've prayed for something repeatedly. There's a line in the song that says, ‘When you've cried, and you've cried until your tears run dry, and the answer won't come, and you don't know why, and you wonder if you can bow your head even one more time -- do it one more time.’”
West launches his “Don’t Stop Praying Tour” on Feb. 22 in Charlotte.
“I've got this vision on our spring tour of doing this big prayer wall, where people can walk up in the lobby and write what they're praying for,” he said. “And we're going to collect those throughout the entire tour. I think it will tell a beautiful story of people who believe that God hears us when we pray.”
Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Images/Terry Wyatt/Stringer
Video Courtesy: Matthew West via YouTube
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.