Aaron Shust
Showcasing the beauty of simplicity in popular modern worship anthems including “My Savior, My God” and “To God Alone,” Aaron Shust thinks a song is best when it’s stripped to its bare bones and exposed with nothing to hide behind.
His new song, "God of Brilliant Lights," off his new album Morning Rises (July 16, 2013), is a great reminder of one of God's promises to his children. "It makes me think of the passage James 1:17, where it says, 'Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows,'" the singer explains."What an incredible promise! Every good and perfect gift comes from the God of heavenly lights! The God of love is going to shine down on us. He is light and He is life. Our God shines over us."
The uplifting album Morning Rises chronicles some tough obstacles Aaron experienced over this last year. “This is an album about how God is faithful. God is steadfast. God is the same,” he says. “Whenever our life goes crazy we can say, ‘God is faithful.’ If you believe the verses that we memorized as kids or in our early Christian lives, that He has a plan for us, that He’s never going to leave us, that He’s never going to forsake us, then that rings true. You need those truths in the dark hours. That’s what this album hopefully covers. Morning Rises represents hope. Morning Rises represents promise.”
Aaron and his wife Sarah have held tight to their faith while dealing with tragedy these last few years. His second son Nicky was been diagnosed with a rare illness- Eoniophilic Esophogitis. And his third son Michael was born with Down Syndrome as well as a heart defect and hearing loss.
The couple has kept their eyes on Christ through out their heart-ache, and have even experienced the power of God's healing. "My wife Sarah felt very strongly that she needed to take Michael to a prayer meeting in New York. She brought him to the front. During the prayer up at the altar he started to cry and she wasn't sure why," Aaron explains. "The next morning my wife called me from New York crying and said she called Michael by name, and he turned his head for the first time in 14 months acknowledging her calling his name. The following Monday we got clinical proof. He has full range of hearing. It just blew my mind that God chose to heal in that sense."
“And Nicky was in a really bad place at one time,” he says of his other son’s illness. “The disease went from almost taking his life to being completely not in his body at all. Clinically, medically, certifiably it was gone.”
Aaron started writing tracks as he led worship at Perimeter Church in Duluth, Georgia, and as a result recorded his first independent album, Anything Worth Saying in 2004. After attracting some attention because of his God-given talents, Aaron signed a record deal and suddenly airwaves were flooded with his breakout hit, “My Savior, My God,” which was the most-played song in 2006.
Following Aaron’s success, a slew of touring and promotional appearances would follow, providing a proper introduction to the artist who was always a little more comfortable being “underground” before.
Once the tour was a wrap, however, Aaron was determined not to simply ride the coattails of “My Savior, My God”. He returned to the studio a year later to record his much-anticipated second album, Whispered and Shouted. Fueled by a desire to write music that ministered to people outside the comfy confines of the church, Aaron penned 12 songs that were both challenging and worshipful.
Shust's project, This Is What We Believe- featuring the song "We Are Free-" is an album about the journey back to the roots of artist's faith, “Over the years, I’ve written a lot of songs speaking to my own soul the way David did in the Psalms: ‘Why are you downcast? Put your hope in God.’ But these new songs are a much bolder declaration," Aaron says, “They come out of a difficult season, and these are declarations about who God is and who we are in Him because of His great love for us. This whole project is really about praising him simply for who he is.”
"We are free to go above and beyond, we are free to love as God has loved us, we are free to forgive others as he has forgiven us, and that's the freedom that we have in Christ."
