Your destiny isn't tomorrow. It's today.

    Lately I've had to face a lot of closed doors. It seems like every door possible in my life closed in a matter of just a few months. I went from the fast pace of leading a School of Worship, to leading 6 weeks of prayer and worship and recording an album, and working like a maniac to being trapped in my house pretty much 24/7. Clearly God is trying to say something and I think it's about time I listen, but I'll be honest, all these instances have left me with a great sense of loss. Most of us know, especially in this economy, how hard it is to count your blessings when the list appears to keep getting smaller and smaller. It's easy to praise God and trust him when everything is going good and you have everything you need, but it's a whole other story when you're searching frantically to find something to be thankful for. I guess it's through experiences like this that Paul learned to say that he was able to be content with a lot but also with little. (I would say nothing, but that's never true because no matter how bad off we are, as long as we still have breath we have something to be thankful for.)

       God has really been teaching me that instead of looking ahead at where I want to be (or really just where I think I should be) I need to focus more on what I can do right now with what I've been given. It's so easy to get caught up in striving to reach goals when that's where your eyes are fixed. But that's not what God tells us to do. He says that when we seek His Kingdom first and make that priority, everything else just falls into place. 

  So lets look at the parable of the talents for a minute. Most know the story, God gave them each a certain amount of talents. One buried his, another doubled his and the other like really multiplied it. (like more then the second guy because he was trusted with more). My point with this is, God gives stuff to us all. Some have more then others but we all have been entrusted with something. Even if all you have is breath in your lungs, you have something to offer the world. You have something to help bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. That is the goal. I really feel like instead of always looking ahead at where we are not at, or what we don't have, it makes us a slave to the future. If we focus on what we have been given right here, right now and steward it well (meaning do everything possible to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth with what we have right now) then God can trust us with more. But if we are always focused on what we don't have, its like burying what we do have. It's a lie from the enemy to believe that you're not useful until you've reached your "destiny" because you will always feel like you need to be better at something or have more of other things. But what if your destiny is everyday waking up and looking at what you have in your hands and saying "God, thank you for everything you've entrusted me with. How do I bring your Kingdom to earth with all this?" This mindset frees us from the lie that we haven't yet arrived and are useless until we do. It also frees us from the expectations and opinions of where others think we should be. There is a reason you are alive today. You have a destiny. Don't wait for conditions to be perfect for you to walk in it because they never will be. Do it NOW!

Refuse to be hurt

    Well as I'm winding down on the end of my 22nd year of life, I thought it'd be nice to look back over this year and reflect on how much God has taught me and done in my life. So here we go!

    I feel like God has taught me so much this year, but if anything the biggest lesson I think I've learned is greater understanding on how to love. I know I probably say this every time, but I realized that I really have a tendency to just love people that love me. It is so much work to put effort into someone who continuously hurts you, but I read a verse last night that really makes sense:


Matthew 5:46 "for if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?"


   If you always just love the people that are easy to love, then you haven't really learned to love. Love loves to love, and the reward of love is love. Love loves to love EVERYBODY!!!! No exceptions (this is where the word unconditional comes in). My tendency is to remove myself from a relationship when I keep getting hurt by the person, but as I've been studying the life of Jesus, I've found that he never did that! Not once. He never refused to give love to a person even though they hurt him, but what he did do was refuse to be hurt. He had a view of people that we can only have if we allow God to transform our minds. Hurt people, hurt people! It's an ongoing cycle of hurt because someone is hurting so they end up hurting someone else who then hurts someone else ect.... get the picture? So how do we stop this cycle? We have to refuse to take on hurt, we have to learn to see people through the compassionate eyes of Christ and see where the hurt that they tried to pin on us came from. If we choose to see the hurt in the one that hurt us, it enables us to say "I know your hurting and I refuse to allow your hurt to hurt me". Often if we look at the way someone has hurt us and then look at how that person is struggling, you can clearly see why they did what they did. Our hurt NEVER gives us an excuse to hurt others, but we are responsible for the way we respond to hurt. 


   This lesson has been and will be an ongoing process for me, but I know God will be faithful to give me the strength to refuse to be hurt so that I can love like He does. 22 has been amazing! What a challenging but wonderful year, look out 23! I'm coming at ya!
  
   
    

Change in America will start with Music

   Once again God is expanding on my purpose for my life. It's amazing how I've known that I was meant to be a musician since I was 13 but that was all I knew. Now here I sit with greater revelation on why He's entrusted me with this gift and how I'm supposed to use it, and I know I haven't even come close to the fullness of it!
 
    This morning I saw a tweet about music being a runway to God encounters. God took that simple phrase and began to expand on it. Here's what He's been speaking to me.
   As a musician, I automatically have a platform. Even in the Bible the musicians were the ones to go in front of the army. Why?
  1. To send a message to the opposing army that they were on they're way. To announce the coming of war! To communicate to the opposing team!
   We have the ability to send a message to the opposing team! But when we decide we want to blend in and make the same noise and sound that everyone around us is making, how can we even be heard! We have been given a voice but if we just say what everyone else is already saying, then we chose to give up our voice and support the message of someone else. Saying something different will always cause friction, because it causes people to chose. "When you have options, division is the next step", but if we dont give them a reason to choose what is right then we are responsible for the lack of change. What do you want to see happen in the world? Sing about that!

    2. They also at the same time would pump up their army! Music has a way of connecting with your emotions and causes you to feel something. There was a sense of victory that attached itself to the music and helped the soldiers to fight with everything in them.
    I believe that it is the same way with music today. Musicians still have a huge platform and how we chose to use that platform determines the outcome of our society.
   Now lets look at the current state of our society. What is the statistic for the age kids start having sex? I know the age keeps getting lower and lower. And what do they think love is? How do they treat one another? What kind of music are they listening to? It's all about relationships, sex, hurt, anger, revenge and we wonder why our children are struggling so badly! What you expose yourself to is what your going to learn from. The future of our country lies in the hands of our children and we continue to dump all our hurts and anger on them through the platform of music. And we wonder why our nation is in such bad shape.
 
     Musicians, it's time we recognize our responsibility to our nation and the world. America has such a huge influence on the rest of the world too! We are way to powerful to take our gift lightly. It's time we rise up and use our gifts to encourage our world. Not just sell songs and write hits to glorify ourselves. We have been entrusted with too much to be selfish. But we will only write from the overflow of our hearts. What we dwell on is what we limit ourselves too. If we choose to be influenced by the same music that is influencing the world, we will only continue to give the world what it already has. I refuse to contribute to the current state of our nation but the way to start to create change, is to change me.

God, continue to show me how to live in such a way that when this gift comes out of me it will be a runway to You.

Music, Emotions & God

   I was reading in my current choice of literature this morning. "Kissed the girls and made them cry" by Lisa Bevere (good stuff). I just really wanted to share something that really spoke to me as a musician and songwriter who is madly in love with God. Hope it speaks to you too.....

"Music is an essential key to the awakening of our love for God, because music has the power to usher us past our present reality and into the very presence of God. It lifts our truest and deepest emotions closer to the surface and transports us to a dimension closer to the heart of God. He can speak for us when words are hard to express and our feelings are so overwhelming. As a youth David used the power of music to draw him closer to God and keep loneliness at bay while tending sheep. As he sang he sensed God's presence with him in the wilderness."

   The music we listen to has the power to control our emotions. When we choose to listen to music that feeds our emotions instead of causes us to rise above our circumstance, we've chosen to remain in that state. If we want to change our situations, we need to be careful of what we take in. What goes in is what's gonna come out. I have no problem with love songs and listening to secular radio, but I really have no desire to because my desire is for Him, and most of the time that's not who they're talking about.
    As musicians and songwriters I think we need to realize the power we have been entrusted with. What kind of influence do we want to have? The sounds and words we release into the atmosphere have the power to change lives, communities, and even our nation. How are we going to chose to use the anointing and power we've been given, to simply blend in or change history?

"Someone in this generation is gonna make a noise thats gonna shape a nation!"

"Her spirit returned"

Lately God has been pounding the phrase "Self-pity destroys Hope" over and over into my head. The other week at work while I was sorting through apple after apple, He spoke that simple phrase to my heart. At first I was just like, yes that's good, but the next morning I woke up and it was like God flipped the switch while I was sleeping and the light bulb turned on! I suddenly saw area's where I had lost hope and then He pointed out that I had lost hope out of pity for myself. My selfishness began to take over my mind. I became absorbed in my disappointment and frustrations and because things were not going my way, I slowly began to give up. I began to allow dreams and desires to die because my current situation looked hopeless.

Tonight I read Luke 8:49-52. It's the story of the a man who ran desperately to Jesus because his daughter was sick and He wanted Jesus to heal her. Here, read this:

⁴⁹ While He was still speaking, someone *came from the house of the synagogue official, saying, “Your daughter has died; do not trouble the Teacher anymore.” ⁵⁰ But when Jesus heard this, He answered him, “Do not be afraid any longer; only believe, and she will be^[a]made well.” ⁵¹ When He came to the house, He did not allow anyone to enter with Him, except Peter and John and James, and the girl’s father and mother. ⁵² Now they were all weeping and lamenting for her; but He said, “Stop weeping, for she has not died, but is asleep.” ⁵³ And they began laughing at Him, knowing that she had died. ⁵⁴ He, however, took her by the hand and called, saying, “Child, arise!” ⁵⁵ And her spirit returned, and she got up immediately; and He gave orders for something to be given her to eat. ⁵⁶ Her parents were amazed; but He instructed them to tell no one what had happened.


Now this passage is full of so many things we can learn, but here is what jumped off the page to me tonight. Everyone was so focused on the fact that SHE DIED. Yes she did die. Do you see this? Now just keep that in your head. This girl is dead. Not sleeping, she is dead. Most of the time when it looks as though there is no hope left, that's when we give up! Why keep believing for something because it's obviously never going to happen? That is living in the worldly culture! Yes, in this world, there is no cure for death. We cannot bring people back to life. But now let's go back and read this again. Jesus of course does not live with a worldly mentality. He lives in the Kingdom culture. In the Kingdom culture, death can be cured and not only cured but reversed and better then ever! There can be complete healing and restoration! My favorite part of this passage is where it says, "Her spirit returned". If it "returned" that means it left. Are you getting this?


We have a choice. We can live with a worldly mentality and settle for death of our dreams, desires, physical death, sickness ect... or we can live with a Kingdom mentality and see death bow to the power of Jesus Christ! Not even death can stop Jesus from bringing life and restoration to a situation.
No matter what your situation is, it will only change if you change your mind. It all comes back to renewing the mind. If you choose to stay limited to the way the world understands things, you've chosen to settle for death and disappointment. Run to Jesus just like the desperate father did in this story. Invite Jesus into your situation. Let Him breathe life into the dead areas of your life.


"To have a resurrection, you have to have a death."