(James) This is the most personal song on the album for me, as well as my favorite. I originally wrote the chorus alongside a different version of the song during the summer before I went to college. The song is about struggling with a sin addiction, and experiencing the forgiveness of Christ in the midst of my own brokenness. In many ways, its a personal account of Luke 18:9-14, which says:

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else: ‘Two men went up to the temple complex to pray, one a Pharisee the other a tax collector. The Pharisee took his stand and was praying like this: ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like other people - greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest and saying, ‘God, turn your wrath from me - a sinner!’ I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other; because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

I had come on staff with Veritas full-time, and was newly married when I fell back into my old addiction. For a long time, I covered it up, both to others and to myself, refusing to really repent and only trying harder on my own to overcome it and making up for it with other “righteous acts.” It was until I confessed both to God and the lies I had told to others that I truly felt like God heard my prayers again.

We began recording this in September of 2013. The song was also originally in G, but I wasn’t happy with how the vocals sounded on early demos. I experimented moving the song to Bb, mostly so I could drop my voice nearly an octave down and get to the bottom of my vocal range, which I thought would add more character to the song (I was heavily inspired by a band called The National for this album). I didn’t think of raising my vocals up the octave for the climactic part until we were recording the vocals, and I thought I’d just go for it and see what would happen. Bobby and Isaac were in the control room, and we all knew immediately it was the direction the song needed to go.

For the recording, we put on a vocoder effect on the vocals through the second chorus, which I thought added a “broken” sounding effect. It sort of simulated how it was my voice, but there was something impure about it. Similarly, the guitar part during the interlude was created by experimenting with a reverb effect in Apple Logic. We edited the best 1 or 2 measures of it and looped it throughout the interlude. It creates a jarring, tension-creating effect that I thought the song needed before the climactic finale.