What God Gave Me

Intro

None of this was me.

Not really.

God put something in my chest

before I knew what to do with it.

This is me finally saying thank you.

Verse 1: J. Cole

God gave me a pen before he gave me a direction,

gave me the hunger before he gave me the selection

of what to pour it into — I was fourteen and restless,

didn't know that what I carried would become the necklace

round my neck that kept me breathing through the floors

and through the label and the drop and through the doors

that closed before I could explain what I was bringing —

God knew what I was bringing before I started singing

the language of the bars into existence.

Every closed door was God adjusting the distance

between me and something lesser than my purpose —

every label no was God protecting what was worth this

level of sacrifice — sacrifice meaning all of it,

the floors, the cold, the girl, the loss, every bit

of comfortable I gave up on the road to here —

God was in the blueprint even when the blueprint wasn't clear

to me.

I been a instrument since before I held the pen,

been a vessel for a truth that needed saying and then

God handed me the craft and said go put it in the world —

go put it in the world for every boy and every girl

from Carolina who was told the ceiling was the sky —

God gave me the voice to tell them that was a lie.

Verse 2: J. Cole

Now I'm standing in a place I used to only dream about,

standing with the bars and the crown and every doubt

converted into fuel that God was saving for this moment —

every scar a different sermon, every loss a component

of a plan I couldn't see from where I was standing —

couldn't see from the floor in New York, couldn't see from landing

back in Carolina broken after the label dropped the call —

God could see it from the beginning, God could see it all.

The talent was a gift I didn't earn or manufacture,

couldn't build it in a lab or find it in a chapter

of a book — it was there the morning I was born,

sitting in my chest waiting to be sworn

into service of a purpose bigger than the moment —

God don't give you something real without the opponent

of the doubt to sharpen it against — the doubt was God too,

the floors were God, the label drop was God, the truth

of Carolina was God preparing me for everything ahead.

I don't take a single bar for granted —

every word I write is God reminding me he planted

something in me that was built to last beyond the trend,

beyond the deal, beyond the crown — and in the end

the pen was never mine, it was always on loan

from something greater that decided I was worth the throne.

Thank you.