Scott Krippayne - Warm Cup of Grace

"Even though I can speak it, and understand the fact that He's not going to love me any more or any less than He already does -- regardless of what I do -- I'm constantly learning how to rest in that truth, each day a little bit more."

{{Scott Krippayne}} is most crystal clearly a glass half-full kind of guy, and his new album, ==Bright Star Blue Sky==, is just gushing with a positive refreshment.

"You can look back on the first two records," Krippayne notes "and I don't think they have as much hope or positive-ness -- if that's a word -- as this one does. And I think that is a reflection of where I've been. I think the overall record is a positive record."

Comprehending God's amazing grace is one sure-fire way to bring hope to this life, and Krippayne has been saturating himself in the study of God's unmerited favor. "I've just been growing in the understanding of what God's grace means in my life. I realize that if I'm honest with myself, then I'm a sinner and I'm in need of the Lordevery day. I need his help to get through every day."

For Krippayne, knowing grace is much more than just an intellectual appreciation of this foundational doctrine. Most important of all is attaining the heart knowledge of God's good gifts. "Even though I can speak it, and understand the fact that He's not going to love me any more or any less than He already does -- regardless of what I do -- I'm constantly learning how to rest in that truth, each day a little bit more."

As Krippayne is now the father of his first child, a daughter named Tobey, this new role has also taught him a lot about the true joys of living, as well as the power of love. "Understanding my love for her," he recounts "is just the closest thing to unconditional love that I know, because I know that God loves me infinitely more than that."

"It's that sense of 'It doesn't matter what you do. I'm going to love you.'"

"We may become frustrated day to day, and she (Tobey) may disappoint us, but we'll still love her just the same. I'm still trying to reconcile how God looks at me in times when I let him down, even while I know his love doesn't change."

While having a new child is a surely a very hope-filled time, hope is not always the kind of gift that is handed to us on a silver platter. Oftentimes, it's something arrived at on the other side of some trial by fire.

Such has been the case for Krippayne, since he's been through some real heat to get to his present sunny disposition.

For example, the album's title cut came out of one such intemperate period.

"The song "Bright Star, Blue Sky" itself actually came out of one of the tougher times we went through this year; one that we're still in the midst of," explains Krippayne. "My wife's parents are in the midst of a separation, and there's a possible divorce on the horizon."

"That song," he continues "was born just a few days after we heard this news. I talked to Steve Siler, who had a songwriting appointment with me that day, about feeling like there was a dark cloud hanging over the house. We both said, 'Man, we'd just love to bring some light, and the hope of Christ, into this house.' The house needed it. The folks around here needed it."

Their main goal for this song was to try and express their strong desire to be out from beneath that dark cloud, and back in the light of Christ. "We wanted to really trust the Lord in the midst of that. We knew that's where we needed to be, but it was hard to be there."

While this song will lead listeners towards hope, the first order of business for these writers was to let it redirect their own hearts, using the act of songwriting as a sort of therapy. "The hope was that it would direct our hope, and point our hope to the hope that's found in Jesus Christ. He (Siler) came up with the title 'Bright Star, Blue Sky,' and I loved it. We just kind of went from there."

Watching people going through a separation affords the opportunity for couples to look upon these

Wise couples, who see other marriages separating, can look upon these unpleasant situations as opportunities to evaluate their own relationships. The Krippaynes were no different when they found themselves as witnesses at the scene of this disaster.

"To be realistic, I gotta go 'Yeah, it could happen to us, if we aren't constantly trying to grow our marriage, and trying to make it a better marriage.' Because as I look at her parents, this separation didn't just happen out of the blue -- even though it may have appeared that way to us. It was a slow process."

After that initial shock, Scott and his wife Katie, used her parents' example as a springboard for self-examination. "What my wife and I really tried to do, is take a good hard look at our relationship, and say, 'What can we do? Where do we need a lot of growth, a lot of attention?' We want to prevent this from happening to us. We want to be active in making our marriage better and stronger, and becoming closer together and building our relationship on Christ - so that this won't happen."

Nobody ever wants to see their friends and relatives go through such trouble. Yet, at the same time, God has reasons for letting us observe such things. It may be his way of warning us. Or it might be his method for teaching us. "If our eyes are open to see those things, we can learn a lot from those types of situations. We're trying to say, 'Well God, what do you want to teach us out of this? It's not necessarily fun to walk through, but we know that you will use all things to your good and for your glory. In what ways, even now, can you be doing that (teaching) in our lives?'"

Krippayne's music is not just about being Mr. Serious all the time, and taking on all the big life issues. If that were so, he wouldn't have included the lightweight "Coffee Song" on his latest album. "I was sitting at a coffee shop," says this professional songwriter, speaking of his craft "thinking that I kind of wanted to do a little (writing) exercise today. Just pick a topic, and write about it."

He looked deeply into the swirling black brew in his cup, and out steamed inspiration. But don't even try to push Krippayne for the spiritual applications of this song. "There's no spiritual significance -- to my knowledge -- to that song," admits Krippayne.

Nevertheless, audience members who have suggested biblical implications of this one song have also unwittingly gone a long way towards describing just what {{Scott Krippayne}} is all about.

"A couple of people in concert have come up afterward and said that I could always say 'My cup runneth over.'"

Some people might be tempted to look at your cup running over and say that you're spilling. That is, unless you're a glass half-full kind of guy, like Krippayne.