“Osi, I’m your Way Maker and that Promise Keeper…if I said I am going to do it, I’m going to do it. My story is that I’m doing what I’m doing from Africa and touching the whole world which has never been done before and it’s rare to see because I believed Him and His Word.” – Sinach
As we eagerly count down to October 30th 2020 and await the winners of 2020’s Dove Awards, we take a journey down memory lane on how a single song, Way Maker has travelled round the world and the impact of this Spirit-filled song in our lives.
Recently Sinach shared how this song was born out of her personal encounter with God, out of a feeling of nervousness, stating that she never imagined that God will promote this song in this manner, likening it to when God first called Abram and he had nothing to hold on to except God’s promises:
“I’ve been writing songs for a long time. I have catalogues of songs, when we were singing some of those songs, they were making a lot of waves, but this one was different. It just went…I guess when the Lord wants to introduce you differently, He does it in His own way and you’ll never know which one He will take.
The song came out of…here I am in a new season in my life. I always tell people that success is in levels; you go from one level of success to the other. Here I was after so much, I’d done so much and then it was time…that time that you move to another level of success, so there is a bit of a gap: sometimes you don’t know, “what am I supposed to be doing?”
It took a while; it was a swift change in season and I got nervous. Of course, I was like a fish out of the water, I was going to a kind of area that I haven’t been before and the Lord was pulling me towards that area. Sometimes when the Lord wants to shut this door and open another door; you are like, “I want to stay in the comfort zone. I don’t want to move.”
So I was in that place and I got really nervous. It was a period that I had to really latch onto His presence and really seek His face.
He began to tell me something: He told me that when He called Abraham (Abram then, he wasn’t Abraham), He told him to leave his people, his comfort zone and He took him out to a place where He will show him. He (God) didn’t explain everything. He said to him, “I will make you famous.”
That’s what He said, “I am going to make you famous. I am going to make your name known. I am going to make you great.” All that promises. It was just a promise but the Bible says Abraham believed God and he left his comfort zone. He didn’t even know where he was going but he started the journey.
That’s when the Lord gave me that song. He said, “Osi, I’m your Way Maker and that Promise Keeper…if I said I am going to do it, I’m going to do it.”
It was a personal revelation to me and He said, “my Word will bring light to every dark situation”; of course He works miracles. Though the greater truth is that we are miracle workers but He works miracles. He is the Chief Miracle Himself.
That’s how the song came up. It was such a drama, so we put it on YouTube, boom it just went. Everybody started singing it from different places. People were translating it in different languages. The song just taught me that you can never outdo God when you decide to believe Him for what He says He is and for what He says He will do that He will do.
I see myself from being a young little girl in Africa, able to overcome my environment, believing in the pictures that God showed me that what He was going to do with me, He was going to do with me. My story is that I’m doing what I’m doing from Africa and touching the whole world which has never been done before and it’s rare to see because I believed Him and His Word.
‘Way Maker’ was uploaded on YouTube on 31st December 2015 and it has been from glory to glory with worldwide acceptance. In July 2017, on the third day of the Dominion Camp Meeting (30th June to 2nd July 2017) while Lisa Brunson with Harvest Music Live sang ‘Way Maker’, a bridge was introduced, “Even when I don’t see it, You are working, even when I don’t feel it, You are working. You never stop working.” By 2018, the remix had become popular and it was performed by the Pentecostals of Alexandria, at ‘Because of the Times’ (BOTT) in February 2018.
In Australia, where ‘Way Maker’ is popular, most people think it was originally sung by the legendary gospel musician: Michael W. Smith. However, he has always given credit to Sinach for allowing him to do a cover of her song, when he shared being struck by the crowd’s reaction during a live performance two years ago.
In his words:
“This song found me, and it found me through my daughter Anna. It was two years ago and I was working on an event (a free concert in August 2018) at Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, where thousands of people come together and we pray over the city. Long story short, Anna was going through a difficult time and she said that she found this song and that it became her go-to song. She played a version that a church somewhere in the U.S. had done and I just remember going “wow.” I said we needed to do it at the Bridgestone event, and we did that night. I just knew right away there was something really special about ‘Way Maker’…
Most people want to hear what they know and if you play a new song they’re usually like ‘whatever.’ But this time there was this kind of gasp in the audience and people were like ‘whoa, I’ve never heard this song before.”
Michael W Smith was later approached to do a radio version of the song in order to have more airplay but he was reluctant to do it since it was a new terrain for him without knowing that God wanted to launch him into a new season.
“I kind of fought against that because I usually don’t do that. I’ve never written anything for radio in my entire life … but I made an exception because I felt like something in my gut told me that I think this is a very, very important song, and I didn’t realize, obviously, with this pandemic, boy am I ever glad I did it. It kind of struck a nerve, and it’s been No. 1 for two weeks in a row. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a No. 1.”
By May 2020, aside from holiday songs, Smith who hadn’t topped the Christian charts since 2004, had his breakthrough with ‘Way Maker’, which was the No. 1 song on Christian Airplay for about two weeks in May.
In 2020, the path of ‘Way Maker’ has continued to shine brighter and brighter; it is fondly referred to as the COVID-19 Pandemic song when videos were shared of people pulling up in their cars to sing ‘Way Maker’ at Phoebe Putney Medical system, Albany, Georgia; Poinciana Medical Center in Kissimmee, Florida, coupled with the Italian version “Aprirai Una Via” which was released in March 2020. Moreover, ‘Way Maker’ was used as a theme song in the wake of George Floyd’s death, at Milwaukee; Fredericksburg, Virginia and Indianapolis, where they sang it during a prayer vigil.
As at date, ‘Way Maker’ has a record of 160 Million views on Sinach’s official Youtube. It has been covered by gospel musicians including Leeland Mooring, Michael W. Smith, Christafari featuring Avion Blackman (a reggae version), Darlene Zschech with William McDowell and translated into 50 languages though we are still anticipating renditions of ‘Way Maker’ in Nigerian languages.
“Here we are in this crazy, unprecedented time and I just think it’s become people’s go-to song. It gives people hope.” – Michael W Smith
Sources: Forbes, Sinach’s official, Christian Broadcasting Network, Tennessean online.
