Joel Houston, the American Music and Billboard award-winning musician, songwriter, pastor of Hillsong NYC, and singer-songwriter with the world-famous Hillsong United Christian rock group, chronicles the struggles he has overcome on his personal spiritual journey in this poignant book based on the band's most popular song, "Oceans".
Yet few of the many who sing the songs know just how intrinsic Houston's own personal and spiritual odyssey-has given shape and form to the very sound and words that have come to resonate with believers and unbelievers alike across the spectrum of culture.
Wrestling with the pressures of a platform he long tried to avoid, Joel reveals how stepping into his own fears and insecurities, and learning by way of failure and doubt have been the catalyst to his journey. From the suburbs of Sydney, to the streets of New York City, Joel discovers how the great unknown between where we find ourselves, and where we are headed is an ocean filled with hidden dangers and hidden wonders-and yet, how it's only in embracing the mystery, come hell or high water do we begin to understand our purpose and calling. In this, the band's first book, Joel explores faith in a modern world, landing in the unlikeliest of places, at the end of every unexpected step. How the wonder of a childlike trust should never get old in the pursuit of spiritual maturity-how the beauty, truth and goodness of God is best revealed in the messy places-and how every fall and failure along the way is met and caught by a deeper understanding of a Redemptive God who has never failed, and won't start now.
Expanding on the poetry of his lyrics, Joel's use of imagery and story-telling has a way of tearing at the layers we were never meant to carry and speaking into the depths we were never meant to hide. His candid-vulnerability in sharing is own experiences, tried and failed, and how the process of shedding the layers that weighed him down along the way, strikes a chord in the depths of anyone who has ever wrested with fear, insecurity or any sense of not measuring up.
