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Lord I Lift Your Name on High

From 1997 to 2002, one of Rick Founds’ songs had the distinction of being the number one praise and worship song being sung in America’s churches, according to Christian Copyright Licensing International’s Top 25 list. Although the song is only of more than three hundred songs that Rick has written, it is by far his most popular. As a young child in Idaho Falls, Idaho, Rick became fascinated with music, often climbing up on the piano bench to explore the keyboard. By age 10 he was writing songs for his Sunday school class, the first of which was “Come to Me.” Young Rick loved hymns and the presentations of the church choir. He also developed a love for the guitar and honed is skills by playing along with television commercials. Rick graduated from college with a degree in media technology. He had wanted to pursue a degree in music but was steered away from that goal by a high school choral teacher who had become discouraged in his own career. Rick did however, take a number of music courses in college, giving him the background he needed for his future ministry. Following college, Rick taught visual technology at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California, for 7 years. He led worship on the weekends and snag in special meetings with his praise team. From that employment he went full-time into the ministry of music at a church in California and continued there for 14 years. It was while he was a music director at that church that he wrote his now famous song “Lord I Lift Your Name On High” The song was born out of Rick’s typical devotions. He had a small Macintosh computer and an electric Bible, which he would bring up on his monitor and begin reading where he had left off the previous day. Since his office at church was far away from other people, Rick had developed a habit of playing his guitar while reading the Bible on his computer screen. One day, as Rick was having his daily devotional, the Lord impressed on his heart that his work on our behalf was a cycle of events. Christ came from Heaven to earth, gave His life on the cross for us, was buried and three days later rose from the dead, and went back to His Heavenly Father, making the cycle and our salvation complete. That, essentially, is the lyric of the song. Rick picked up his guitar and began to sing “Lord I Lift Your Name On High.” Rick explained, “it is just a simple song, but it is what the Lord dropped into my heart. The whole song came quickly; I didn't struggle with it at all. I did, however, continue to work on the latter part of the song for another four or five days before I felt it was complete. Then I song it for an evening Bible study. They seemed to love the song. At the time I had no idea that it would be so popular. I had simply written another song, much as I had done many times before.” Rick was thrilled to hear thousands of men sing his song at Promise Keepers rallies. The song has become widely popular and now can be heard in other countries of the world, in many languages. Rick rejoices in letters of how the song has impacted people around the world. Rick and his wife, Debbie, have three daughters and make their home in California.

REFLECTION: There are times when we should worship our Heavenly Father simply for who He is. There are times when we should worship God because of His Holiness, and there are times when we should worship God for all that He has done to bring us to Himself.