Category Archives: Spiritual Thoughts

Ride to the Gas Station

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My dad bought an old broken down 1966 Chevy Truck a couple of months ago (at least I think it’s a Chevy, I’ve only seen it once). There’s something that excites him about having old cars, similiar to what having an old guitar or amp would do for me. After getting it worked on some and planning to work on it some more himself, I dropped him off to pick it up yesterday. After getting back to the house, I was changing clothes when I heard what sounded like a garbage truck and a helicopter got together and made a baby. It was so loud coming up the hill of our driveway and smelt like pure exhaust. That truck alone could cause the end of Earth Day forever.

My dad asked me if I wanted to go for a ride and get some gas with him. I agreed to, realizing that he just wanted to show off one of his new prized possessions…little did I know what I was in for…

This truck is really old. I didn’t even realize that cars were made with manual transmissions without an actual stick shift until I got in this thing. So we’re not even 1/4 mile away from my house when we go to make a left turn, crossing over on a busy road. The thing dies out on us…while we’re in the middle of the oncoming traffic lane! I start to get nervous and look down, only to be reminded that my seat currently doesn’t have a seatbelt. I start thinking, “this is an awful way to go, but if God’s ready for me, I’m ready…”. I can’t believe what’s going on and then I think to look and see the cars coming…and there are none. We lucked out big time.

However, we didn’t get another 1/4 down the road before it gave out again on us in the middle of the road, with cars lining up behind us and all. And we get it going again…and it dies again…and goes again…and dies again. This cycle seriously continued for about 2o minutes making it not even a mile from my house. Finally, my dad decides gas isn’t worth it and that he thinks he has enough for the time being, and we start heading home. But we didn’t get far before it died again…and again…and again. If I wasn’t going to die, then I definitely was going to lose my entire night. We finally just pull over on the side of the road and my dad pulls out his phone chuckling and calls the mechanic shop to get them to pick it up. He didn’t really seem too concerned about it all…he was just in for the ride.

Although this wasn’t a story I was laughing at yesterday, it’s quite funny today. But how many times are we stuck doing something we think will be great, and it backfires on us and sends us wanting any possible way out. If we were to learn to be like my dad and just be along for the ride and see what God may be teaching us through our uncomfort. It’s cliche, but God hasn’t called us to stay in our little “Christian comfort zones”, but to get out in the world and make a difference!

So enjoy the ride…

My “Home Church”…?

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Right now I’m at a weird point in my relationship with a “home church.” Since I play guitar at different churches each week, I really don’t have a church I’m at every week. I consider my “home church” to be Oak Leaf, meaning that is where I give and attend whenever I’m not booked (which the last time I wasn’t booked was in September). However, I don’t feel a part of Oak Leaf at all really anymore. Hannah hasn’t even been going there anymore.

So where do I go from here? I want to find a home church that Hannah can be on Sundays and I can get rooted into during the week, while I’m still playing around on Sundays. I know this almost seems like an impossibility, but I want so bad for Hannah to have a church home again and I want to have somewhere where I can be a part again.

I guess a lot of this has to do with me getting anxious about where I’ll be after I graduate.

What kind of job will I have? Will I be working at a church? If so, what church? Where will I be living?

These are all questions that have been poking at me lately. With less than a year before I’m done with school, it’s hard to not think about it. And these are all questions that I should ask. But the great thing is that I have no other option than to trust the Lord because I have no idea what will happen or come up…I have no other choice.

Gift of Influence

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I’m blogging via my WordPress App in the van on the way home from a D-Now in Valdosta. We had a great time this weekend and made some really cool new friends. We missed Ty not being with us for the first time since he got his new job, but we were glad Clay Goswick got to come and play.

Something that’s hit me hard this weekend is how I use what God gives me…specifically influence. Over the weekend I’ve signed hundreds of things and talked to hundreds of students…but what does that mean? Next year they could have a different band and they’ll forget about me (if they didn’t before then). How am I using the influence I’m given right now? How can I take the attention given to me and redirect it towards the one who deserves it all?

I think about people in my life like Joey Agee. Joey played guitar at my 8th grade church summer camp and spent a lot of time with me. As a young guitar player (I had just started), it meant a lot and I learned a lot. But Joey didn’t use his influence to make a name for himself…he worshiped God by the way he loved on me and redirected that attention to God. I don’t mean to be sappy, but that meant a lot to me as an 8th grader and little did I know that I’d be playing with Joey some about 7 years later.

How are you using your God-given gift of influence? This is what I’m wrestling through right now…

Quick Thought

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Trusting God has been a big thing for me over the past few months. I’ve gotten to a place of trust with Him that I’ve never encountered before.

However, recently, I’ve been learning something else about trust…

It’s not enough to trust God. I have to live my life for God.

It doesn’t matter if I trust God if I’m not living for him…

Hannah’s Anchor

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I don’t normally do stuff like this, but I have to brag a little bit on my girlfriend. If anyone knows Hannah, you probably know that her mom has been battling some form of cancer for almost a year now. They don’t know where it is, but they’ve been trying to treat it. Her mom has decided to stop doing treatments so she can avoid being sick and enjoy life and being with her family again (especially since the treatments are all just shots in the dark anyways).

To say that this has been a very challenging time for Hannah, would be an understatement. Hannah and her mom have been very close and it has been a hard thing for her to go through. I have struggled with trying to find ways to comfort her and be there for her. It’s been a difficult and challenging time and nothing seems to be getting better.

But Hannah has found a truth and has been grasping it tightly. That truth has been getting her through the tough days and giving her hope and encouragement. This message is where she was led to this truth:

“…Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls…”
- Hebrews 6:18-19

Hannah has put her hope in the cross of Jesus Christ and clings to that strong and trustworthy anchor in troubled times. I am very proud of her and can’t wait to see how God uses this situation in and through her life.

Worship Isn’t Worth It Anymore…

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Something’s been going on in my heart recently and I wanted to share a little:

My job is to play guitar for people leading worship (I like to believe that, in a way, I’m leading worship as well). That becomes kind of weird because I basically get paid to worship myself, but I believe with all my heart that that is exactly where God wants me. But lately, worship hasn’t been good enough for me. I want so much more. I’ve literally been on stage hundreds of times, leading worship for thousands of people through the years. I’ve been a part of lots of different worship environments and experiences. I’m just not satisfied after even a great worship experience like we had last night at First Baptist Woodstock. There were about 70 students that got saved and an intense night of worship. Don’t get me wrong, it was an amazing night and the Spirit did unbelievable things, but I suddenly want more…

I desire a lifestyle of worship. I want to be someone who worships God with everything I am, every day and every hour. Yesterday I heard hundreds of students lifting their voices in worship to God…singing at the top of their lungs. I started thinking about how each voice sings a different song, while singing the same song. Every person has a different story and their heart and life sings from a different perspective, even while singing the same song as hundreds of other people all around them. How powerful is that?!

Then last night at dinner, we were sharing “Christian ghost stories” (which is really demon stories…spiritual warfare is for real!). We started talking about how the name of Jesus causes the demons in demon-possessed people to literally get uncomfortable. I remember Paul saying that the demons not only believe in God, but they shudder at His name. There is power just in the name of Jesus! Do we worship Him that way? I can’t even wrap my mind around worshiping someone whose name has that much power!

He is worthy of so much more than our songs. I’m not talking about living a good life. God calls us to holiness, but living a “good life” is not living the kind of life that God calls us to! Holiness is so much more than that…it is pursuing the heart of God to an extent that you become more like Him and desire Him with a fierce passion. Our lives should sing a song of praise to Him, regardless of what is going on…not by the good things we do, but by the way pursue Him and, eventually, become God to other people by the way we live.

I say all this from a convicted heart because I certainly do not have this down by any means. I want this so bad…nothing is worth anything if this is not there. What we know of worship is not even worth anything anymore if we’re not living it out. Then it’s just a song. And songs end…and get old. There is so much that we aren’t even tapping into yet! And I pray that God does something radically transforming that won’t let our hearts go until we are filled with a passion to know Him, become like Him and make Him known!

Sinners in Steak & Shake

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After the Leeland concert the other night, Ty and Megan, Darren and Jenny, Hannah and Avery (my youngest brother) and myself decided to dine at Steak & Shake. When we were getting up to pay, I was at the front and was going to pay first, when Hannah came up to me and said, “Go rescue your brother.” I turned to find that a guy at large table full of men had stopped Avery and was talking to him. When I approached I heard him sharing the gospel to Avery and I listened and did not interrupt him. I noticed that all the men had bright colored bracelets on, like they had been at a conference. Avery seemed like he was listening, but very annoyed.

Once the man got to asking us a question, I answered and explained that we were already Christians, but thanks for taking the time to share with us and started to walk off. I hadn’t even taken a full step before he said, “I know.” I was slightly puzzled why he was sharing this. Then as he began to talk again, I realized what was going on. This guy was preaching at us about something…

He asked what the gospel was, what it meant to us and how we are saved. I answered explaining God’s grace through the sacrifice of Jesus’ death. He then started asking us about how I lived my life and how often I read the Bible. Avery and I both said everyday (since we’re both in Christian schools, it makes it kind of hard to not say this, but he didn’t know that). He then asked how much we share the gospel. This is something that I know I need to work on and get better at. I told him that, but explained, “I try to love and live my life in a way that shares the gospel every da-”. I didn’t get to finish my sentence since he quickly blurted, “That’s not good enough. That is unbiblical.” I immediately realized what kind of person I was dealing with and responded in an offended tone, “Oh really?!”

Before I could ask him about the verse that claimed that people will know you’re a believer by your love, he was on to telling me that I needed to be out declaring the gospel to people. I told him that I thought that relationships must be built before true evangelism can happen and random witnessing to strangers isn’t always very effective (although it can be, it typically isn’t as effective and doesn’t always help as much in plugging a believer into their new life). He continued to tell me that if I wasn’t out proclaiming the gospel to everyone all the time that I was not living the Christian life. It was then that he wanted to address the sin in my life some more and asked if I felt like I was more holy and closer to God than I was a year ago. I told him that I do feel like that.

It’s at this time that he said he’d let us catch up with our friends (who had all been watching and waiting for almost ten minutes now). I could tell he’d ran out of stuff to say. He was obviously very new at this whole thing, as I was able to say some things and make him bend and have to try a different approach. I enjoyed this conversation since I don’t get the chance to have these kind of conversations as much as some other people do (again, partially my fault).

I just never felt the need to tell him that I was a worship leader and pastor…      :)

God’s Faithfulness Proves Again!

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I promise I won’t always give an update about this, but I just have to share this…

As of this past Sunday (AKA the last day in August), I’m booked every Sunday morning in September. Throughout all August, I kept telling God that I was going to trust Him to provide opportunities, even though I only had half of the month booked for a while. Then last Sunday I booked another Sunday, and got the final open Sunday remaining in September booked this past Sunday (right before September actually hit).

I say all this to say that God is good and is remaining faithful to His promises to me. This is definitely stretching my organized personality that likes to be so planned out in advance, but it’s been great for me and I couldn’t be happier where I’m at and with what God is doing in my life!

What’s Next…?

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I was telling a friend yesterday that this is the hardest thing that I have ever done. I’ve never really been asked to take a step of faith like this before.

I love the story of Abraham, in which God tells him all these huge plans that He has for Abraham: his family will great and all people will be blessed through him. God had so much more for Abraham than he would have ever imagined for himself. God knew and planned it out that His Son, Jesus, would be born into Abraham’s lineage, and God would bless all people through Jesus…and, ultimately, through Abraham.

While God is promising this to Abraham, He is also calling Abraham to leave his home and go where He is leading them…to Canaan. God is leaving Abraham with a lot of blanks when He makes this promise and calling. However, those blanks get filled in as the journey continues and Abraham gets even closer to God through all of it.

God has asked me to pull an Abraham and completely unroot myself. He’s called me to leave my job at one of the best churches in the world to venture into the unknown. I know God has called me to travel around and play music at this point in my life. Honestly, I have no idea if that will be where God will have me in 6 months from now. I don’t even know what I’ll be doing in a month or if I’ll have any income. But as uncertain as this time is for me, I’m totally certain that this is where God wants me. My heart is so surrendered to Him and I have to trust Him so much everyday.

And the awesome thing is that He has not let me down. He’s giving me numerous opportunities in the coolest ways. Last Wednesday, I had only one Sunday booked in August…not a promising start for the first month of stepping out in faith to do what God has called me to. By the end of the next day, I had the four other Sundays booked. Although my personality would prefer that things were planned out more in advance, God is stretching me and doing things in my life that I never would have dreamed of.

I have my ideas of plans for how my life will play out over the next few months and years, but who is to say God does not have even bigger and better plans in store for me?

SOLO

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Here are a few of my thoughts from the past week going through the Message Remix: Solo devotion book:

  • God speaks loudly in the silence (1 Samuel 3).
  • I want to be like Samuel and so in tune with God’s heart and mission that I’d oppose anyone who tried to go in any other direction (1 Samuel 8).
  • “Make the conscious choice to move the attention of your anxious heart away from [the] waves and direct it to the One who walks on them and says, ‘It’s me. Don’t be afraid.’…” – Henri Nouwen
  • “What can I possibly say in the face of all this? You know me, Master God, just as I am. You’ve done all this not because of who I am but because of who you are–out of your very heart!–but you’ve let me in on it.” – 2 Samuel 7:20-21