Eighty Verses and Five Years

Leonard Cohen spent nearly five years writing Hallelujah. He filled notebooks with draft after draft — roughly eighty verses in all — searching for the right words to carry the weight of that single, aching melody. When the song finally appeared on his 1984 album Various Positions, Columbia Records refused to release it in the United States. They didn't hear what Cohen heard.

It would take another decade — and covers by John Cale and Jeff Buckley — before the world caught up. Today, Hallelujah is one of the most recorded songs in modern history.

There is a kind of patience in Cohen's story that mirrors what Scripture asks of us. James writes, "See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains." The farmer doesn't rush the rain. Cohen didn't rush the verse. Eighty drafts, and he kept going.

Sometimes the most important work God is doing in us feels like it's going nowhere. The prayer you've prayed a thousand times. The waiting room that never seems to empty. The growth you can't yet measure. But the Almighty who began a good work in you is not finished. He is patient with His own composition — and He does not abandon a single line.

Trust His timing. The song isn't over yet.