Give You What Costs (Rap/R&B) cover art

Give You What Costs (Rap/R&B)

Rap/R&B Version

Written by Shane Pierson

Released January 1, 2024

This song started as a journal entry I wrote during General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints a few years back. I found it one day just reading back through my notes in Evernote. One of the prophets referenced the moment...

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Lyrics

Yeah

I thought about this on the way here

Which is already sayin' somethin'

I pulled up late

Said I'd stay, didn't mean it

Phone face-down, still feel it buzzin'

Like it knows when I'm tryin' to focus

I give You pieces

Like samples

Like crumbs off the table

Then I say "amen" real confident

Like You don't know what I'm dodgin'

I call it quiet

But I'm just stallin'

Call it peace

But I'm still scrollin'

I brought You time that didn't matter

Then wondered why I still felt hollow

I don't wanna give You what's easy

I don't wanna hand You what's left

If it don't cost me my comfort

Why it feel like I'm callin' it faith

I don't wanna give You what's easy

If it don't make me slow down

If I can walk away untouched

Then what did I really lay down

I live where everything's loud

Even when nobody's talkin'

Ideas die young in my head

Before they finish walkin'

I say "just a second"

That second turns thirty

I say "I'll come back"

But I don't come back early

I protect my habits like they love me

Defend 'em like they pay my bills

But I keep tellin' You "not yet"

Like delay don't still mean no

If I can give it up easy

If I don't feel it resist

Then maybe what I keep callin' worship

Is just me avoidin' the shift

I don't wanna give You what's easy

I don't wanna hand You what's left

If it don't cost me my comfort

Why it feel like I'm callin' it faith

I don't wanna give You what's easy

If it don't make me slow down

If I can walk away untouched

Then what did I really lay down

I'll buy the ground I'm standin' on

No discounts, no borrowed fire

I won't say I love You out loud

Then live like You're further down the wire

Take the minutes I guard

Take the things I don't share

Take the part of me that says

"I swear I care, I just ain't there"

I don't wanna give You what's easy

I don't wanna hand You what's left

If it costs me my attention

Then maybe that's the real check

I don't wanna give You what's easy

I don't wanna call it enough

If it costs me my attention

Then You can have the part I keep locked up

I won't offer You what costs me nothin'

That deal don't sit right no more

If attention's the price

I guess I finally know what You been askin' for

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The Story

This song started as a journal entry I wrote during General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints a few years back. I found it one day just reading back through my notes in Evernote.

One of the prophets referenced the moment where King David said he would not offer the Lord something that cost him nothing (in Nehemiah). That line stuck with me longer than most things do. Not in a dramatic way, but in a slow, persistent way that kept coming back up as I thought about my own life.

I started asking myself what I actually offer God. Not what sounds good or just looks faithful from the outside. But what really, truly costs me something.

I realized pretty quickly that a lot of what I do is habitual. Going to church. Saying prayers. Serving in callings. Those are good things, and they matter. But they can also become automatic. And automatic effort does not stretch you. It does not require surrender or demand much from you once it becomes routine.

That realization tied directly into something I have believed for a long time. You cannot idle forward in life. Physically or spiritually, idling is not neutral. If you are not exerting, you are regressing. The body at rest after effort heals. The body at rest without effort weakens. The same thing happens to your spirit.

So, this song lives in that realization. It is me noticing where I convince myself that something counts as sacrifice simply because it fits comfortably into my life. The line that matters most to me is the last one. Giving up what is hardest to give up.

Time with family. Control. Comfort. Work. Identity. Those are the things I protect the most, and those are usually the things that cost me the most to place on the table. This song is about being honest enough to see that and brave enough to act on it.

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