John Waller

They also serve who only stand and wait. That old saying may sound like an oxymoron, but for artist John Waller it is the simple, Gospel truth – a truth he has been walking out in his own life. “Who among us hasn’t become discouraged when you believe you have a promise from God and it doesn’t seem to be coming to fruition,” John ponders. “We are an action-oriented people and our tendency is to try to help God out by doing something …anything. Abraham tried to run ahead of God and the result was Ishmael. That didn’t work out too well.”
When a friend suggested John write a song about waiting on God, the idea just clicked. “Everyone can relate to the pain of waiting on God,” John says. “I wanted to pose the question, ‘What do you do when you are waiting on God?’ The answer is, you continue to be faithful where you are. You continue to serve and worship while you are waiting. I wrote “While I’m Waiting” in about ten minutes. I never dreamed it might end up in a movie.”
Not only did “While I’m Waiting” end up in FIREPROOF, the No. 1 independent movie of 2008, it became a focal point of the film and the only song played in its entirety. The themes of John’s song resonated so strongly with the film’s message that the producers scripted an entire new montage around it. The theatrical release’s 4 million viewers’ response to the song was immediate and visceral. “While I’m Waiting” hit a collective nerve and people began clamoring for more.
With the release of his sophomore solo project, While I’m Waiting, the Georgia-based singer/songwriter delivers a stunning eleven-song treatise that overflows with a message of trusting God, even during those painfully long seasons of waiting. “The important thing to remember while we are waiting on God is to not just wait, but to actively wait,” John declares. “Serve, worship, and be faithful with what you have, where you are…even while you wait.”
Second solo record, that number hardly seems appropriate for this artist who began his journey more than fifteen years ago. Yet those years of dreaming, chasing the dream, surrendering the dream, and eventually having the dream resurrected may be responsible for keeping John Waller from sacrificing While I’m Waiting to the dreaded sophomore slump.
Like many of the Biblical heroes of the faith, John says God gave him a dream and then he ran ahead of God trying to bring that dream to pass. “I manipulated circumstances and tried as hard as I could to make the dream come true,” John muses. “It didn’t happen. After thirteen years of continually hitting brick walls, I gave up. I went through the process of the death of a dream. When God resurrected that dream in His own way, it was so much better than anything I could have imagined.”
The resurrection of the dream included the release of John’s critically acclaimed debut album, “The Blessing,” an opening slot on Casting Crowns’ “The Altar and the Door Tour,” and the placement of his song, “While I’m Waiting”, in the box office smash movie, FIREPROOF. Billboard Magazine proclaimed him to be one of their ten “Faces to Watch;” CCM called him a “Major buzz artist for 2007;” and Christianity Today said John could “Well be the shot in the arm that Christian AC needs.”
But while the accolades are nice and the platform is welcome, John Waller insists his focus is set on merely being another tool in the Master Carpenter’s tool box. John is just happy to be used to build up the Body of Christ.
“If you had asked me ten years ago, ‘Who is John Waller,’ I would have said, ‘I am an artist.’ I’m not comfortable with that anymore, because while that may be what I do, that is not who I am. If you ask me that same question today, I would answer ‘I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.’ The truth is, everything that is true about Him, is true about me now. If He is love then I am love. If He is peace then I am peace. That is not something I do. It is something I am. And if you are a follower of Christ that is true about you, too.”
A bold declaration, to be sure. But declaring the Word of God to be true has become something of a trademark for John – so much so that he has coined the term “declaration songs” to describe much of his music.
“Many contemporary worship songs are vertical and are appropriately directed toward God,” John explains. “But I believe there is also a need for horizontal worship songs that are designed to build up the Body of Christ. The Word of God says, ‘You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.’ My calling is to go deeper into God’s Word and to let that truth set me free. My job is to put that truth into songs, and put those songs in to the mouths of the people. I could write about topical issues and put a catchy hook in it, but that’s not eternal. The Word of God is the only thing that lasts forever. When people sing the truth of God’s Word, it changes their lives. I don’t know anything that is more powerful.”
John points to his militant rock anthem, “Our God Reigns Here,” as a classic example of proclaiming the Word of God as an act of spiritual warfare. “I was on a mission trip to a mining town in Wales,” he recalls. “The town was involved in a tragic accident more than fifty years ago in which 166 school children were killed in a landslide. There was a dark and oppressive spirit over the town and I heard someone say it was as if the spirit of death reigned over them. My spirit rose up within me. That was wrong. Jesus reigns. He has conquered death. If the spirit of death was reigning over this town, it had no right to it. I wrote “Our God Reigns Here” as a battle cry to call out the spirits of death, fear, doubt, depression, anxiety, addiction, anger, rage – spirits that are assigned to wreak havoc and destruction. This song rebukes these spirits in Jesus’ name, and declares that God reigns here.”
John admits his rollicking declaration of faith, “Faith Is Living,” is his favorite song on the project, because it is so close to where he is living today. “There is a line in the song that says, ‘You’ve never lived until you’ve lived by faith,’ and it is so true. I’m still learning to live by faith, and it can be challenging, but it is also incredibly exciting.”
“Cling to the Call” is another song that was birthed through a combination of experience and revelation. John wrote the song as he was preparing to move his family half way across the country. “We had no place to live,” John recalls. “We didn’t know what we were going to do when we got there. We didn’t know how we were going to get the money to move. But the revelation in my songs has always preceded where I am in life. We knew we were called to do it, so all we could do was cling to that call. Some people think that means clinging to a particular task, but tasks change. The calling is to cling to Him.”
Whether expressing tender adoration in a sweet, worship anthem like, “Hands of the Healer,” rocking the rafters on powerful declaration songs like “Dead Man Walking,” or exhorting the Body of Christ with an encouraging “Priestly Blessing,” John Waller has found that nothing happens as expected. And that true success only comes from learning to serve while you are waiting.