Click above to listen to Across the Skies from the album A Thousand Years as you read, featuring Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D. If you enjoy, consider purchasing the song, album download, or CD from iTunes or stantonlanier.com (where sheet music is also available). Do the skies speak to you? I can remember it like it was yesterday. I loved climbing to the top of the tall sweet gum tree across the street from my childhood home in North Carolina. I call it the “100-foot tall sweet gum tree,” as seen through the eyes of a nine-year old boy. When I sat on a strong branch near the top, holding on to the tree trunk, my perspective shifted. I could look out over the neighborhood. I could see the birds flying high. I could sense there was something much bigger than me. I didn’t know it then, but there is scripture that speaks to what I believe I was sensing…

“God’s glory is on tour in the skies, God-craft on exhibit across the horizon. Madame Day holds classes every morning, Professor Night lectures each evening. Their words aren’t heard, their voices aren’t recorded, But their silence fills the earth: unspoken truth is spoken everywhere. God makes a huge dome for the sun—a superdome! The morning sun’s a new husband leaping from his honeymoon bed, The daybreaking sun an athlete racing to the tape.That’s how God’s Word vaults across the skies from sunrise to sunset, Melting ice, scorching deserts, warming hearts to faith.” (Psalm 19:1-6, The Message) This is how the melody Across the Skies was birthed for the album A Thousand Years, which interweaves original composing with timeless hymns and classics. Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D became the canvas for painting an original melody inspired by the first half of Psalm 19. As you listen, think about some of your favorite “sky moments.” What vistas did you treasure as a child? Where do you like to go today to see the sky? As you take in the scene, can you hear God’s gentle whisper speaking softly to the depths of your soul? Let your heart be warmed to faith as God reveals Himself to you, as the Great Storyteller writes a page in your story today (the image above happened as my flight was landing on a recent Ohio concert trip). “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” (Psalm 19:1-6, NIV)