As we take this cinematic journey through Psalms together, I encourage you to listen to the album and each song on your favorite music streaming service first, for pure enjoyment and also to see how God may speak to you through the music. If you want to go deeper Psalm 107 is down below. You can also read and reflect on the spiritual and musical inspirations behind each song while you listen or in silence as a quiet devotional. Wishing you God’s grace and peace, Stanton
The verse “So thank God for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves” is repeated four times in The Message Bible paraphrase of Psalm 107. The opening verse reads, “Oh, thank God—he’s so good to us! His love never runs out.” The final verse says, “If you are really wise, you’ll think this over—it’s time you appreciated God’s deep love.”
Beginning with the very first instrumental song I wrote twenty-five years ago—Grace and Truth (John 1:14)—every composition has been like a love song from God, even though they have different titles and were inspired by different Bible verses. I wanted Marvelous Love to be huge because God’s love is so extravagant and without limits. It became like a tribute of thanks to Jesus for loving me so much, and for being in my life since I was a young boy (He knew me before I was born, Jeremiah 1:5). I wanted the music to be filled with the incredible sense of wonder and awe rising up in my heart. With a spirit of child-like faith this song is giving thanks and appreciation to God for His astonishing, marvelous love.
Musically this piece is rich with carefully chosen instruments, meter, and tempo. The opening with vibraphone and choir touches on the fantasy realm of God’s wondrous, mysterious love. The meter is 7/8, a less typical beat with a 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3 pattern that has a fairly fast tempo. Yet, the main theme is singing a long, slower love melody over the top of this rhythm. The secondary theme is in 6/8 time expressing the four times repeated verse, “So thank God for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.” In musical works 7/8 and 6/8 meters are less used than 4/4 meter—common time—which is the most used, followed by 3/4. God’s marvelous love is most uncommon, unusual, unfathomable. Some might even say, “it’s too good to be true, that Jesus dying on the cross saves me from my sins and makes me right with God. It seems too simple.” But Jesus promises, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John14:6) A new 7/8 ending melody fades to a soft, final vibraphone note that sustains and rings true just like God’s marvelous love, which carries us forward.
“God has made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated” (Ecclesiastes 7:29) inspired my song Simplicity on my third album Draw Near in 2004. When I began composing Marvelous Love in 2025 my desire was for the music to be worthy of the title. The less common 7/8 meter represents our earthly life’s complications. Life is often perplexing, broken, sinful, and can be seemingly hopeless at times. But God is with us, offering us moments of His peace, hope, joy, and beauty, and singing His “plain and simple” eternal beauty over our “very complicated” lives.
The Eternal Beauty cover image is a photo my wife and I took in a Scotland castle garden. It immediately reminded me how we see glimpses of God’s beauty and love on earth, but the ultimate, incomprehensible beauty and the full experience of His marvelous love for all eternity are behind the door—Jesus—the gate of Heaven (John 10:9). The Marvelous Love main theme with its long notes and beautiful melody is singing over our lives that God is good, merciful, and loving, always and forever.
How does Marvelous Love speak to you?
Psalm 107 (MSG)—MARVELOUS LOVE
1-3 Oh, thank God—he’s so good! His love never runs out.
All of you set free by God, tell the world! Tell how he freed you from oppression, Then rounded you up from all over the place, from the four winds, from the seven seas.
4-9 Some of you wandered for years in the desert, looking but not finding a good place to live, Half-starved and parched with thirst, staggering and stumbling, on the brink of exhaustion. Then, in your desperate condition, you called out to God. He got you out in the nick of time; He put your feet on a wonderful road that took you straight to a good place to live. So thank God for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves. He poured great drafts of water down parched throats; the starved and hungry got plenty to eat.
10-16 Some of you were locked in a dark cell, cruelly confined behind bars, Punished for defying God’s Word, for turning your back on the High God’s counsel—A hard sentence, and your hearts so heavy, and not a soul in sight to help. Then you called out to God in your desperate condition; he got you out in the nick of time. He led you out of your dark, dark cell, broke open the jail and led you out. So thank God for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves; He shattered the heavy jailhouse doors, he snapped the prison bars like matchsticks!
17-22 Some of you were sick because you’d lived a bad life, your bodies feeling the effects of your sin; You couldn’t stand the sight of food, so miserable you thought you’d be better off dead. Then you called out to God in your desperate condition; he got you out in the nick of time. He spoke the word that healed you, that pulled you back from the brink of death. So thank God for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves; Offer thanksgiving sacrifices, tell the world what he’s done—sing it out!
23-32 Some of you set sail in big ships; you put to sea to do business in faraway ports. Out at sea you saw God in action, saw his breathtaking ways with the ocean: With a word he called up the wind— an ocean storm, towering waves! You shot high in the sky, then the bottom dropped out; your hearts were stuck in your throats. You were spun like a top, you reeled like a drunk, you didn’t know which end was up. Then you called out to God in your desperate condition; he got you out in the nick of time. He quieted the wind down to a whisper, put a muzzle on all the big waves. And you were so glad when the storm died down, and he led you safely back to harbor. So thank God for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves. Lift high your praises when the people assemble, shout Hallelujah when the elders meet!
33-41 God turned rivers into wasteland, springs of water into sunbaked mud;
Luscious orchards became alkali flats because of the evil of the people who lived there. Then he changed wasteland into fresh pools of water, arid earth into springs of water, Brought in the hungry and settled them there; they moved in—what a great place to live! They sowed the fields, they planted vineyards, they reaped a bountiful harvest. He blessed them and they prospered greatly; their herds of cattle never decreased. But abuse and evil and trouble declined as he heaped scorn on princes and sent them away. He gave the poor a safe place to live, treated their clans like well-cared-for sheep.
42-43 Good people see this and are glad; bad people are speechless, stopped in their tracks. If you are really wise, you’ll think this over—it’s time you appreciated God’s deep love.