Story Behind How He Loves

 Song writer: John Mark McMillan

So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way… he loves us

The heart of a song is more than the story of its inspiration or inception; it’s also the story it becomes in the listener and the singer. “How He Loves” became the anthem of a youth movement as John Mark McMillan recounted the story of his friend Stephen at a conference with 70,000 young people. John Mark told how one fateful night his friend prayed something on the order of: “I would give my life, for these people that I love.” And that very night, Stephen’s earthly existence was ended in a terrible accident. McMillan says, “I was in complete shock of my friend dying. And I sat down and had a conversation with God about it. And that song, basically, popped out.” For those who heard John Mark tell the story and the half million who viewed it on YouTube the legend emerged: “Stephen offered his life. God took him up on it. And out of his sacrifice, a youth movement of others  like him—willing to lay down their lives—would be birthed and this song would be the fuse that would ignite it.” And so although the story had some truth, the songs real heart and meaning were partially hijacked.

Bending the Truth

“I think, what happens is that a story travels—and it’s an exciting story. One thing I really regret is that I didn’t put more thought into what I said. I really didn’t know it was going to be broadcast to the  universe. None of it was untrue in any way shape or form. But I wish I’d been clearer about things so that people better understood what I was saying. It’s like [the game of] telephone, it’s a legend that gets crazier every time someone tells it. To the point where, someone said Stephen was raised from the dead and came back and gave me that thought [song]. But I was like, ‘that’s a great story, but it’s not true at all.’”

The song became about Stephen and a movement when it was really about God. “What the song means to me—this is why it comes from the death of my friend—is we have these places that we would like for things to sort of exist, this sort of plane, where we have the love of God and God loves. We have church; I have every hair in place, the perfect suit and you dress up… But God, isn’t confined to the hour or the rituals, you know. The Bible says ‘the whole earth is full of his glory (Is 6:3).’ God exists and you can find him in every situation. I think that’s the point: that I found God in the worst situation. My friend, a young healthy guy died in a very, very terrible car accident, and God was able to show me who he is even in that situation.

The “Who” of God

“In church we like to pretend everything’s okay a lot. And most of the songs we sing in church are sort of the happy songs, but only 15 to 20 percent of the songs found in the Bible are happy. The other 75 to 80 percent are the angry ones, the sad ones, or the brutally honest ones. For me, the song was not about ‘how much’ he loves us: ‘he loves us so much that he died.’ It was ‘how’ he loves us, ‘the way’ he loves us. He loves us in ways that are not like we think; they’re better than we think. The idea that Jesus is acquainted with our situation: we don’t serve a God who doesn’t understand our suffering and our pain or joy. He’s not this sort of mechanical brain in the sky who does things for us when we pray. He’s actually a person, and he has experienced life on earth.

“I was super angry. And I didn’t know who to be angry at. And I came to realize if you’re angry at nobody then you’re really angry with God, because he’s the only one who can change the situation. So, I sat down. I didn’t have a bad attitude. I wasn’t shaking my fist at God. I was just, I guess, hurt. I was really young. I’d never experienced anything like that before. I thought Stephen was the only one who understood me in certain ways, probably the only guy at the time I could be completely honest about any area of my life. And he was the same with me; there was no sort of pretension. When he was gone, it was, ‘I have nobody to call, nobody to talk to. How am I going to process and deal with life without him there?’ And so I sat down and that song just sort of materialized. And as I was singing the song I saw the story of my friend in the song. In my heart I was questioning the love of God, really. I was trying to have a conversation with God, but I think he was speaking to me in the song even though it’s written from my perspective.”
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