Photo by Qingbao Meng
Catholic artist Audrey Assad has been busy touring this year and selling her 2018 album Evergreen. This 2010 Christian Breakthrough Album of the Year recipient landed in hot water this past October, supporting gay pride celebrations. Reactions to it were mixed, with some support and understandable frustration from her Catholic supporters who cite CCC-2360 as diametrically opposed to her position.
Also, check out my review of Good to Me.
Lyrics can be found at https://genius.com/Audrey-assad-i-shall-not-want-lyrics.
Note to new users: This is a different kind of review site! Read About the Berean Test and Evaluation Criteria prior to reading this review.
1. What message does the song communicate?
Assad prays to God, requesting rescue from many worldly desires. These wants shrink to nothing when Assad partakes of God’s goodness. She lists nine desires that God obliterates, including:
- Worldly comfort
- Poverty
- Worldly lifestyle
- Poor communication
- Acceptance
- Loneliness
- Servitude fears
- Persecution and death
- Humility
The fourth one, poor communication, is a legitimate desire that ought not require God’s deliverance. We must be clear about how we convey ourselves to others. It would be better to write this “From the need to understand” given that God doesn’t always tell us everything.
Score: 9/10
2. How much of the lyrics line up with Scripture?
Most of it does; However, I take exception with the first line of Verse 2.
[Verse 1]
Line 1: We cannot serve both God and worldly riches (Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13). The love of it will corrupt us, leading us to commit much evil (1 Timothy 6:10).
Line 2: On the heels of line 1, the words of Agur in Proverbs 30:7-9 is similar to Assad’s, asking to have enough. As mentioned in line 1, wealth will corrupt him. Poverty will cause him to steal, which is behavior contrary to Exodus 20:15.
Line 3: This comes through spending time with God in prayer and studying the Scriptures, where He slowly alters our desires, transforming us from death in sin to life in Christ (Romans 6:1-11, Romans 7:4-6, Galatians 2:19-20, 2 Timothy 2:11, and 1 Peter 2:24).
Line 4: God is the recipient of Assad’s prayer for deliverance.
[Verse 2]
Line 1: I agree and disagree.
I agree in the sense that we shouldn’t obsess over it. I also agree that we should avoid unhealthy desire to become understood, that “nobody gets me” becomes our mantra.
I disagree in the sense that clear articulation is a requirement to carefully handle the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15). Scripture is useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, so that we may become completed workers (2 Timothy 3:16-17). It’s one thing to communicate clearly and the recipient to misunderstand. It is another matter to miscommunicate.
Line 2: We should not seek to be accepted by the world, because we are not made for this world. Rather, we are called to live in the world, but be different than the world system (Matthew 16:24-26, John 8:22-24, John 15:19, John 17:14-16, John 18:36, Romans 12:1-2, 2 Corinthians 6:14, Ephesians 6:12, James 4:4, 1 Peter 2:11-12, and 1 John 2:15-17).
Line 3: It is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18).
Lines 4 and 5: Repeats Verse 1, line 4.
[Chorus]
Line 1: Because the Lord is Assad’s shepherd, He will lack nothing. He supplies all our needs (Genesis 2:15-16, Genesis 9:3, Genesis 22:8, Exodus 16:1-36, Psalm 18:2, Psalm 23:1, Psalm 34:10, Psalm 81:10, Psalm 84:11, Psalm 107:9, Proverbs 10:3, Malachi 3:10, Matthew 6:25-30, Matthew 7:7-8, Matthew 21:22, John 14:13-14, John 14:26, John 15:1-10, John 15:16, Romans 8:32, Ephesians 3:20, Philippians 4:19, 2 Corinthians 9:8, and 2 Corinthians 12:9).
Line 2: When we taste and see that the Lord is good, we put our trust in Him (Psalm 34:8). This causes us to have changed desires, where God provides for us rather than operating on our own steam (see commentary in line 1 and Verse 1, line 3).
Line 3: Repeats line 2.
[Verse 3]
Line 1: This is the prayer of Zacharias, father John the Baptist, in Luke 1:74-75 concerning him and his son. He is requesting deliverance from his enemies, that he and others may serve God in holiness and righteousness and without fear.
Line 2: First spoken by Jesus to Peter in Luke 12:11-12, the Holy Spirit helps us know how to respond to persecution.
Line 3: Pride keeps us from coming to God when we are afraid, hurting, or broken. Christ delivers us from these things when we come to Him for rest (Matthew 11:28-30).
Lines 4 and 5: Repeats Verse 1, line 4.
Score: 9/10
3. How would an outsider interpret the song?
Those who do not yet know Christ will understand this as prayer before God, with an obvious reference to Psalm 23:1, something that most unbelievers I’ve interacted with are well-aware. The world readily drinks up much of these fears, particularly worldly desires, understood, and acceptance. It will serve to challenge them to become less worldly; However, unbelievers shall not abandon their clarity.
Score: 8/10
4. What does this song glorify?
It glorifies God through Assad’s focus on God’s providence and goodness; However, his misstep on Verse 2 hides it somewhat.
Score: 9/10
Closing Comments
Audrey Assad’s I Shall Not Want has a lot going for it. It offers excellent prayer points for God to move, transforming believers and challenging non-Christians, which glorifies God. However, it also missteps when requesting God to remove the desire for unambiguous expression.
I hesitate to recommend this for worship without modifying “to be understood” to “understand”.
Final Score: 9/10
Artist Info
Track: I Shall Not Want (listen to the song)
Artist: Audrey Assad
Album: Fortunate Fall
Genre: Contemporary Christian Music (CCM)
Release Year: 2013
Duration: 4:40
Agree? Disagree? Don’t be shy or have a cow! Calmly and politely state your case in a comment, below.
Updates:
10/22/2021 – Updated intro to exclude information about criticism of my review of Good To Me.
03/17/2021 – Updated per repetition announcement. I increased my score for section 1 and 4, raising its overall score from 8/10 to 9/10.
09/21/2020 – Added further commentary to Verse 2, line 1, in response to Brendan’s comment. This did not affect my score. Also, repaired several spelling errors.
Comments
Jodi Schulteis
Audrey Assad is a female vocalist/artist which you accurately captured in your introduction however, there are a fair number of typos in each of the 4 breakdown sections, where you refer to her as a “he”.
I agree with your review.
Vince Wright
Jodi,
Thank you for reporting this error! I repaired one pronoun in section 1 and capitalized “He” in one instance in section 2, indicating God. All other “he” pronouns point to antecedents other than Audrey Assad. For example, in Verse 3, line 1, the antecedent of “he” and “his” are Zacharias.
-Vince Wright
Brendan
Hi there! Always appreciate your time and research for these. If I may offer a suggested perspective on verse 2, line 1. I don’t think Assad is suggesting that the need to be understood is simply poor communication. I actually don’t think she means communication at all. Consider the context of the second verse:
From the need to be understood
And from a need to be accepted
From the fear of being lonely
These 3 lines build on each other (in the same way verse 1 centers around the themes of hedonism and materialism) and discuss our inner desires to be known, liked, and even celebrated by others. Now these things don’t have to be sinful but often our flesh pushes us into an unhealthy desire to be known and understood at all costs. I think of the phrase, “nobody gets me.” If people aren’t acknowledging who I am and what I’m saying and responding in the way I think they should, then my flesh tells me I should be upset about it. Maybe curse them for it. Maybe fall into despair and depression. The flesh-filled NEED to be understood can lead to anger and aggression or to sorrow and self-pity. None of these reactions show a trust or identity in Christ, but a desire for the opinions and acknowledgements of others. Its that degree of narcissism that no-one is immune to but can greatly hinder our relationship with the Lord. I hope you will listen to this song again and reconsider this perspective. I believe it is more in line with the authors intent given the context of the second verse.
Brendan
Thanks for you time by the way!
Vince Wright
Brendan,
My pleasure!
-Vince Wright
Vince Wright
Brendan,
Thank you for your comments!
I get where you’re coming from, that the “need to be understood” is about rejecting the need to receive positive responses. I think that I responded the way I did because when I am misunderstood, most of the time, it’s because I miscommunicated. Yet, what you say makes sense also.
I added further commentary to include your perspective.
-Vince Wright
Lyrics Ruminator
Really appreciate your forum for a respectful but honest discussion of this an other hymns.
I heard this for the first time as a closing hymn after a sermon on God’s comfort for those that mourn.
1. I was confused by the sandwich of
From the love of my own comfort
From the fear of having nothing
From a life of worldly passions
Love of comfort and worldly passion seem to me to be quite different from the fear of having nothing. Fearing having nothing seems like a lack of trust in God’s provision, but comes from a different place (in my mind) than loving comfort and letting passion drive us.
2. I was likewise confused by
From the need to be understood
And from a need to be accepted
From the fear of being lonely
Is it wrong to want others to understand you?
Is it wrong to want to be accepted by others – especially family and friends? Yes, believers are accepted in the beloved, and it is wrong if seeking acceptance by all causes compromise, but these are not inherently sinful things, are they?
Like “having nothing”, “being lonely” when He is with us always may in some way be not recognizing God’s presence, but especially in the pandemic age, there are people who are isolated and lonely, and I am confused why we pray/sing to be delivered from these things.
Anyway, just heard the song, contemplating its meaning, it didn’t speak to me naturally and confused me. Thanks again for your Forum.
Vince Wright
Lyrics Ruminator,
Thank you for your inquiries!
1. Assad lists three things to which he requests deliverance from God. I can see your interpretation, that this expresses a lack of trust in God’s providence. If your interpretation is correct, then I think this might be an example of Mark 9:24, where Assad has intellectual belief, but lacks relational trust.
2. Precisely, which is why I partially disagreed. In my commentary, I explained why I disagree with this statement.
-Vince Wright
-Vince Wright
Christine
This song seems to speak more against the fear of going into foreign countries as missionaries— when you move somewhere for the sake of the gospel and you don’t know the language yet or the culture , you will not be understood right away, you will not immediately be accepted and it will typically include loneliness— but we are called to go anyway. This also fits with the prayer against elevating our comfort and desire for worldly things over the call to share the gospel with the unreached.
letterstotheskeptic
I find your review to be very odd to say the least. At no point does she advocate that we should ask God “to remove our desire for unambiguous expression.” She is rather confessing how hung up each of us can get with desiring people to “get us”. We all know what it feels like when people are too quick to assume they “know how we feel” or judge us when they presume to know our motives. It can be maddenly frustrating. This very human need to be known can easily be corrupted to the point where it becomes an idol and feeds our self absorption. The reality is that the God-authored desire to truly be known, can only be met by God Himself.
BJoyful
Yes, I also don’t see a problem with line 2 and interpreted it like you did. It’s hard to have your motives misunderstood as a Christian. (like in the current LGBTQ+ discussions where disagreement can be misinterpreted as hate).
Leif
Where does arrogance fit in the Berean context? This exudes judgement for the profit of man not the glory of God. Be careful lest you be judged in the way you judge.
I am astounded that your comments are so myopic. Largely due to being a new christian with an axe to grind. These lyrics are exactly what we struggle with. Yes, our focus should not be to glorify this world we still live in it and are therefore impacted by all these concerns and relational matters. This screams about the ways that we are broken and fall short yet resonates in the fact that God loves us still.
I think you should seriously consider what you are doing with this site if this is the kind of reviews you issue. Jesus is not a pada
Vince Wright
Leif,
Thank you for your comments!
First, it is important not to confuse arrogance with confidence. Confidence is a trait that involves positively expressing my abilities, while arrogance is more about believing that I am more intelligent and capable than those around you. If you examine my History of Updates page, this contains a list of all the changes I’ve made to reviews, pages, and posts. It’s not a complete list, as I’m still going through old reviews and updating this page with updates; However, it should be more than sufficient evidence that humility, not arrogance, is what drives The Berean Test boat. Also, notice that one of the updates on this review contains a score increase from 8 to 9.
Second, while I appreciate that you took time out of your day to criticize my work and expressed yourself clearly, Colossians 4:6 tells us to “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone”. In other words, it helps to start with a genuine compliment before offering criticism. This is a staple in all my reviews, including those with a highly unfavorable rating. However, you seem to have found nothing good in this review, as well as my website in general. As the saying goes, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”.
Third, it is not wholesale wrong to criticize or judge another person’s work. If you thought it was wrong to do so, you wouldn’t have bothered to comment! It says in John 7:24: to judge with righteous judgment. My judgment of I Shall Not Want is not for my glory, but for His. Maybe you disagree with my conclusion and think that it’s myopic, and that’s fine. If so, then let’s have a discussion about it without resorting to ad hominem attacks.
Fourth, I’m not a new Christian. At least, I don’t think being a follower of Jesus for 13 years qualifies as “new”.
Fifth, I didn’t see anything you said that would disagree with my review or challenge my criticism as the review currently stands. If there was disagreement, can you rephrase?
Finally, while I think it’s great that you are passionate about critiquing another person’s work, I also think that you should seriously rethink your approach.
-Vince Wright
Steve Barhydt
Leif,
As a long-time contributor to this website I can say with absolute confidence that Vince is one of the humblest, most Christ-like men that I have ever dealt with on the internet. (I’m 62 years old and have submitted comments on a wide variety of Christian websites, YouTube videos, etc.)
I have never seen him unwilling to listen to an alternate point of view, prayerfully consider it, and, many many times, update his reviews accordingly.
Did you take the time to read his ‘About’ page https://www.thebereantest.com/about-the-berean-test or his ‘Criteria For Evaluating Christian Music’ page https://www.thebereantest.com/criteria-for-evaluating-christian-music ?
If you had taking the couple of minutes to investigate before castigating him, you would have found the following words…
‘Also, God can use anything, despite my own views and opinions on any song.
Finally, this criterion is not set in stone. As I continue to review content and consider criticism, I reserve the right to tweak the criteria and re-evaluate songs under new criteria or after prayerful consideration of commentary.’
At the bottom of EVERY review are these words…
‘Agree? Disagree? Don’t be shy or have a cow! Calmly and politely state your case in a comment, below.’
These are NOT the words of an arrogant man but rather of a servant of God who is attempting to do a good thing by providing a source for looking at songs Biblically without getting bogged down in the minutia of doctrinal differences on secondary teachings.
I say the following in love in accordance with Proverbs 27:6 ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.’
You quote Matthew 7:1 out of context and then proceed to judge Vince?!?
These are your words…
‘This exudes judgement for the profit of man not the glory of God’
‘Largely due to being a new christian with an axe to grind.’
Talk about arrogant and myopic!!
I would seriously suggest that before you give any more advice to people that you read the rest of Matthew 7:1-5 (KJV)…
1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
The true meaning of this passage is not to ‘Never judge” but to deal with your own issues first and, then, help out your brother.
Until you learn and begin to practice the true meaning of Matthew 7:1-5, The Apostle Paul has a few words for you…1 Corinthians 13:1-7 (ESV)
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[fn] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[fn]
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things
My brother in Christ, this is an opportunity for you to mature in your faith. A chance to ‘grow up” a little. Please don’t miss the moment.