igbok®

“igbok” – the song

igbok — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 02:15:41 +0000

In 2010, renowned songwriter, Tom Douglas, was touched by igbok in a way that made him immediately put pen to paper and express the word through song.

I started seeing “igbok” everywhere – bumper stickers, t-shirts – was it a conspiracy? Some cult? Some new alt/country/new age jazz/rap band?

Tom Douglas and David Arms

Then I met David Arms and saw his amazing creation of the painting “igbok“. The smoke cleared. The Red Sea parted. The code was broken: “it’s gonna be o.k.”…wow, Romans 8:28(a) – “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.” It was an acronym for one of my favorite verses and one of the greatest truths in Scripture.

Hey man it sounds like a song…can I write a song? Voilà!

Listen and (hopefully) enjoy “igbok” – the musical interpretation.

Turn it up. It’s gonna be o.k.

Tom is one of the finest when it comes to the craft of writing a song. He takes ordinary thoughts and experiences of the common man and weaves them into something extraordinary.

Tom won CMA’s 2010 “Song of the Year” for co-writing “The House That Built Me”. The song also received three nominations at the 53rd Grammy Awards including “Best Country Song” and overall, all-genre “Song of the Year”. It won the Grammy for “Best Female Country Vocal Performance”, giving Miranda Lambert her first Grammy win. Tom was also nominated for an Oscar at the 2011 Academy Awards in the Best Original Song category with “Coming Home” from the movie “Country Strong”, performed by Gwyneth Paltrow.

The Song

You can listen to the song on igbok.com or download it for $0.99.

LISTEN

DOWNLOAD

The Lyrics

“igbok”
Tom Douglas

Tell the addict up in Hackensack,
The politician whose feet of clay have started to crack,
The shattered woman who’s man ain’t comin’ back.
It’s gonna be o.k. It’s gonna be o.k.

When you’re staring down the end of a stethoscope
And you get bad news from a starched, white coat;
You got a hole in your soul and a leaky boat,
It’s gonna be o.k. It’s gonna be o.k.

Just when all hope is gone
Love rides in to save the day.
Between the darkness and the dawn
There is a whisper, just remember,
It’s gonna be o.k. It’s gonna be o.k.
igbok baby, igbok baby.

When you need someone to talk you down,
When you’re out there on the ledge;
And you need someone to push you out,
Scared to death on the high dive, stuck on the edge.

So you spin the dial and you change the station,
It’s the time of your life you feel you’re wastin’,
You hear an echo from Genesis to Revelation
igbok baby, igbok baby.

Just when all hope is gone
Love rides in to save the day.
Between the darkness and the dawn
There is a whisper, just remember,
It’s gonna be o.k. It’s gonna be o.k.
igbok baby, igbok baby.

The baby’s up all night and won’t stop cryin’,
And what you’re selling they ain’t buyin’.
You sit alone in a rocker and your memory’s frayed,
Heaven is a dream of finer days,
It’s gonna be o.k. It’s gonna be o.k.
igbok baby, igbok baby.

Just such a place

Lloyd Shadrach — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 03:14:02 +0000

I smile looking at this picture of David and I standing with our “igbok” shirts. Our smiles in the picture, and even the grin on my face looking at it have much to do with where we are standing…in one of the most difficult, hard, hopeless places on the planet – Lietnhom, Sudan.

How does one say “it’s gonna be o.k.” to a people who have lived through decades of civil war, tribal unrest, and religious oppression? Only by the gospel of Christ. The United Nations can’t deliver that message. The United States can’t deliver that message. Their own government can’t deliver that message. Only the gospel.

Lloyd and David in Lietnhom, Sudan

For in the gospel, the heart is changed – not necessarily the circumstances. And when the heart is transformed, hope is born – real hope. Hope that knows God will work out His purposes and plans.

I think I’m smiling because “igbok” is a message for just such a place as Lietnhom. And I’m smiling because David and I have had the privilege to speak that message with many we have come to love in that place.

“igbok” – the painting

David Arms — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:58:17 +0000

After “igbok” came to be, I did an art exhibition in Nashville, Atlanta and Charlotte based on that word alone. I wanted to visually interpret what it meant to me.

There was one painting that said it all.

“igbok”.

After the fall of mankind, the world fell into darkness, but in that darkness we weren’t left hopeless. Time and time again, God reminded us that “it’s gonna be o.k.”.

After the flood He sent a rainbow to spread across the sky (represented by the ribbons on the left). And most importantly he sent His son to die (represented by the red ribbon on the right). In all of this He was saying “I have prepared a way and a place for you to be with me forever”. Looking closely, one might see the nest as the “place where God lives”, but it could also be seen as the crown of thorns, “the way to that place”. Either way, the eggs symbolize hope.

I love the fact that darkness cannot remove light, but light obliterates darkness.

Now that is hope.

And I can rest assured that ultimately – it’s gonna be o.k..

"igbok" – by David Arms

The very center of my “hope”

Lloyd Shadrach — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:19:40 +0000

Hope recognizes that things are not the way we wish or want or believe things “ought” to be. In this, it seems to me that “hope” is utterly realistic and honest. Brutally so. Hope does not bury its head in the sand. Hope carries no scent of denial or ignorance. Hope looks at what is wrong and names it.

I think that is in part why I love the word. It grounds us in the reality that things are not as they were meant to be, but it does not leave us there. “Hope” carries within itself the seed of “the way things were meant to be and one day will be.” That seed may not come to fruition in my day, but that it is certain and sure is at the very center of my “hope.”

The Desert of Eden

Lloyd Shadrach — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:41:19 +0000

When the plane took off it was 32 degrees and snow was on the ground. When the plane landed, it was 71 degrees and sunshine. Last month I had the opportunity to spend two days in Phoenix Arizona. While we are scraping frost off our windows here in Middle Tennessee, they are in the middle of their peak holiday season.

We played three “desert” golf courses, which means taking a piece of desert and turning it into a slice of Eden. I have no idea where they get the topsoil or the grass or the water to keep it all that green, but the contrast between “desert” and “golf course” is practically beyond belief. There were times when I had one foot in the desert, and one foot in Eden. One foot in a place of death, and one foot in a place of abundant life. (Of course, there were many, many times when I was totally in the desert having sliced a shot deep into cactus and tumbleweeds).

The experience has me thinking about life on this planet. How moments of joy so quickly evaporate into moments of sorrow, how one moment life is so good, and the next life is so hard. It’s like every step I take on this planet – I step into life…or I step into the desert…and I’m never sure what the next step may bring.

There is plenty of “desert” right here where I live in the middle of Tennessee. And, there is plenty of “Eden.” I’m looking forward to the day when the desert is no more. Until then…

The universal language of hope.

igbok — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:50:29 +0000

it’s gonna be o.k.

When a child skins a knee or gets their feelings hurt; when the medical tests aren’t good; when fear rolls in like a storm and anxiety hovers like a fog; when dreams die and hope seems to evaporate; when life isn’t going the way we hoped it would — aren’t these the words we long to hear — and believe?

What if God — the creator, sustainer and redeemer of creation — made this promise? What if He shouted and whispered “igbok” from Genesis to Revelation? He’s the only one who could make this promise — and keep it. If He did, then we have reason to hope.

We think He did.

God’s “o.k.” doesn’t mean that the cancer will be healed, the relationship fully restored, the physical pain or emotional ache will go away in this life. It means that because He has entered and overcome our brokenness…we can live this life with real hope — a hope that knows one day everything will be set right forever in the life to come.

You won’t find it in your dictionary

Rubel Shelly — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:35:50 +0000

Nope. You won’t find it in your dictionary. It’s less a word than an acronym. On the order of NATO or IRA or FAQ, the letters pronounced as a word are actually the initial letters of more familiar words. You pronounce this one to rhyme with pig-lock or big-block. Now you’ve got it: ig’-bok. And it means . . . Okay. We’ll get to the meaning directly.

It’s not my word. David Arms and Lloyd Shadrach came up with it as shorthand for something in short supply these days. With so much bad news coming from so many quarters, they were thinking in terms of something that could counteract pessimism, something as an alternative to despair. What they came up with was igbok. And igbok means . . . But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Do you know much about the biblical idea of hope? Unlike our modern-day use of the term, hope isn’t “wishing with little prospect of fulfillment” or “desire in the face of unlikelihood; wishful thinking.” In the Bible, hope is a secure and confident expectation. It is trusting God to keep his word.

There are many things in life that God has not promised. Contrary to the false opinion of some, he has never promised smooth sailing for believers. He has never promised immunity to illness, freedom from stress, or exemption from financial reversals. Remember Job? Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”? All the martyrs?

Faith doesn’t guarantee an easy life. Sometimes, in fact, it is one’s faith that brings persecution. Why just think of it: If being a Christian meant bad things could never happen to you, it would be the cheapest insurance you could get!

So what does the Christian faith offer? It guarantees that no physical harm can diminish your spiritual value or security. It promises a secured future in the face of today’s harsh realities. It tells every pilgrim on her way to the Promised Land that none of the obstacles along the way can deny her an ultimate reward.

In the meanwhile, how do we see ourselves and our situations? If we have plenty, we will be grateful and share it; if we have nothing, we will not envy what others have and know how good it will be to be home at last. If I recover from heart disease or cancer, I am grateful to God; if I succumb to illness, I am with God sooner. If my business thrives, I bless kingdom work with the profit; if it goes broke, I never tied either my identity or God’s love to a balance sheet.

In effect, the promise of God to his people is that – come what may – he will be with them. He will not let the things they value most be lost to them. He will rescue them from evil – even if that rescue can come only, as it did with his Beloved Son, through his power to raise the dead!

In the meanwhile, know that it’s gonna be o.k. Or, for shorthand, igbok.