After a break in 2019, Cory Asbury is returning to music after shifting his focus back to his family and faith.
The Bethel artist announced on Instagram in December 2018 that he would be taking a break from music and social media for 2019.
The significant New Year's resolution came, he says, after a moment of conviction with his family, CBN News reports.
Asbury's hit song "Reckless Love" was, in some ways, the launching point for this decision by the artist. Billboard ranked the song as the biggest Christian song in 2018 and the success of the song required Asbury to spend a lot of time on the road.
“It’s awesome when a blessing happens, but I was also traveling a ton,” says Asbury. “One day I had a come-to-Jesus moment with my wife. We asked the Father, ‘You’ve poured this blessing out on us, so how are you going to make a way for this to be sustainable for our family?'”
Asbury says his wife, Anna, then shared with him a conversation she had had with their son, Gabriel.
"She asked him if he had the choice to either travel the world and go on tour with dad to all the big cities and eat all the best food—or get a dog and stay home for a year—which would he choose? I was thinking about my response, that I would rather travel and see all the places and eat all the food. Anna told me that Gabriel responded so quickly and said, ‘Mommy that’s easy, I’d get a dog and stay home together.'"
That response, Asbury says, led to a feeling of conviction by God to truly invest in his family. Asbury says the Lord ask him this question: "You wrote a song about being reckless and extravagant and throwing it all away for love—could you do that with your family?"
Despite feeling convicted, the decision to walk away from his passion for a year was not easy for Asbury to do. Having wanted to be a professional musician since he was a kid, Asbury says stepping back from that dream made him feel like Abraham.
"I can imagine him walking up that mountain and when I walk up the mountain God is going to say, 'I've provided something for you.'"
The year off allowed Asbury and his family to bond and reconnect, as well as build boundaries and speak openly about Asbury's career.
Asbury says he even stopped writing music for the first six months of the year and only led worship at his church once a month. He also did not tour during the year, instead waiting for God to "speak or reveal a significant next step."
Recently, Asbury broke his silence on social media and announced a new song he had written during 2019.
"This last year was really important to my family and me and I'd appreciate if you took the time to check it out," Asbury wrote in the post announcing his new single, "The Father's House."
Asbury says those first six months of 2019 where he was not writing new music were very difficult for him. Having won so many awards for music in the past, he says he went "stir crazy" for the first few months.
"I wasn't hearing anything from God, just silence. I kept thinking, 'What the heck am I doing?'"
But the year he spent removed taught Asbury many things, including that he didn't need to be constantly writing music to be successful.
"I learned that you don't have to create something to be called worthy," says Asbury.
Near the end of summer 2019 is when Asbury finally decided to return to writing, only after he had started to hear God speak.
It was during a three to four week period of constant songwriting, where "songs were flowing out of me," Asbury says, when "The Father's House" was written.
"It was wild," Asbury says. "I couldn't shut it off or even go to sleep, and when I did I would just have dreams about song ideas.
"It felt like the most prolific writing season of my whole life."
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