Reckless Love - Review

Throughout our adult lives the one thing we seek most is the comfort we once felt as a child in our parent’s arms. No other replacements since then quite suffice. No big houses, financial security, slankets or hot meals could ever replace the endless embrace of a father or mother. That magical crook of an elbow in which our infant head once rested promised complete protection and care.

That, I believe, is what it means to have a child-like faith. Not being simple, but being secure.

What I first took the title of Cory Asbury’s new album to mean was that of the heady romances often called reckless from the outside. The kind of love the burns bright and immediate. Love that speaks with the same words as a bride does to her groom. After all, no other love seemed suitable to being coloured with recklessness.

I was incredibly wrong.

One of Bethel Music’s most recent signings, Cory Asbury explores not the love of romance, but of the limitless love a parent in Reckless Love.

The opening title track, Reckless Love boldly paints the fatherly longing of God for his children. A love that is an ‘overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love.’ And it’s this paternal heart which also spills over into the homely sound of the album. Whilst, yes, Reckless Love as a song does swell with the synths, sounds and strong rhythms that are shared among a great many other of Bethel’s Music’s songs, they don’t stick around for very long. Rather, most of the album’s remaining songs are intimate, warm, and caring. With simple guitar instrumentation, restained drums and the serene sounds of slide guitar, the album has the timeless sounds of a home set against wide plains, against a wide world.

Water and Dust, for example, is an organic song of encouragement that sounds just like the heart-filled advice of a loving parent. One who knows that everything will be alright, even when nothing seems further from the trust. It reminds us that we were made of water and dust; we are made by God, and that itself should be enough to still fears. He made us, and he cares about his creation. Throughout the song, the line Don’t lose Heart is frequently repeated, but then, about two thirds in, the line changes to say ‘Don’t lose heart, child.’ It’s the ultimate reminder of parental security.

So too with You Won’t Let Go which centres around God’s reach being like that of parent holding their child’s hand, and never letting go.

Through Reckless Love, God’s strength is liked not to a celestial force, but to the limitless resolve of the most loving of parents. It’s a love that conquers death, that brings freedom, and that brings the one thing we’ve been searching all our lives for; security.

Reckless Love is available to order today.