Amy Grant Opens up about Her ‘Love-Hate Relationship’ with Certain Bible Texts

Grant’s latest album, Lead Me On Live 1989, releases Oct. 6 and includes 18 tracks from her 1988-89 tour stop in Ft. Worth, Texas. 

She has had multiple health scares in recent years. In 2021, she underwent open-heart surgery. Last summer, she had a multi-night stay in the hospital following a bicycle accident. She then had shoulder surgery. After that, she underwent throat surgery to remove a cyst. 

“I feel better than ever,” Grant told No Small Endeavor. “… I do feel like I see life through a different lens since last summer.”

Her daily quiet time, she said, places life in perspective.  

“Every morning, I say thank you, and I love getting a cup of coffee, and I go outside. And if I can, I put my feet on the grass and connect with the beauty of the earth. And I just let my thoughts wander. And then I’ve done this at different times in my life, and I’m back into this practice, but reading a chapter of the Gospels every day — and just the fascination with Jesus’ life. He created such a stir everywhere He went.” 

She acknowledged she struggles with certain parts of Scripture. 

“I’ll be honest, it’s hard to read a lot of the other stuff in the Bible for me. I have a love-hate relationship with a lot of the history in the Old Testament. It’s hard for me to trust anything that involves people. Because I know that I’m a mess,” she said. 

“I read all the New Testament. I read the Old Testament, too. But I’m like, ‘Okay, people are involved [in the Old Testament stories]. I’m just gonna — okay, God, I know You’re in this. I’ve just got to trust You.’ If people are involved, I have to take a deep breath.”

But some of Jesus’ words are tough, too, she said. She discussed the subject of divorce; she and Gill are in their second marriage. 

“Mostly, what I want to hear about is Jesus, and then He says stuff that scares the ever-living daylights out of me. Like today. What I read today was about if a woman’s divorced — and I’m like, ‘Jesus, even you said it. You didn’t talk about very many things. But why did You talk about divorce? People are so ugly to each other. Why did you say divorce?’ And then I find myself fighting with Him. … Clearly, we all need help. I have a very active imagination. And I will not go down without a fight, and I’m so glad every day. What I mostly say is, ‘Hold on to me, and don’t let me go. Just hold on to me and be glorified.’”

In the late 1990s, Grant said, she sang at a Billy Graham Crusade in Minneapolis when her first marriage was dissolving. She felt the need, she said, to tell the famous evangelist about her broken relationship.  

“I was married, I had three children, I had fallen in love with a married man. And I already had a difficult marriage. And I felt myself just saying, ‘I don’t know where I’m going to wind up. But I think I’m incapable of doing what I have been doing anymore.’ And I couldn’t walk on that stage with the man [Graham] who held the trust of the whole world. I just said [to Graham,] ‘I know I’ve been a public person of faith. And I still believe in God, and I’m headed for a divorce. I need you to know that.’ And he sat down, and he said, ‘I’ve got a bunch of children.’ And he said, ‘There are a couple of them that are taking the long way home.’ And he said, ‘We’ll all get there. It’s okay.’”

Graham’s words comforted Grant, she said. Years later, in 2005, she and Gill visited Graham backstage at his final crusade. Graham hugged Gill and said, “It’s so good to see you. I’m so glad you’re here,” Grant said. 

She said of Gill, “He accepts me right where I am for who I am. The kindness and unconditional love that we express about God, I have felt it in a way through him that I’ve never experienced through anybody else.”

When she looks at the divided culture in America, she says she focuses on John 3:16.

“For God so loved all of us. … Part of my mind every day goes to that.”

 Photo Courtesy:  ©Getty Images/Randy Shropshire / Stringer

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

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