It was a special time for me looking back, and it’s not really anyone’s fault that it’s over… I was listening to the Bethel worship album, ‘The Loft Sessions’ per my buddy’s recommendation and I realized something. “Some songs can only come out of a community”.

If I think back on some of the music that has made the most impact, it came out of my time at Morningstar. I didn’t cowrite them with anyone or demo them, but my personal life and musical life was enriched by my friends and fellow musicians. Leonard Jones always believed in me and gave me a place to launch from. The spiritual fathering of Chuck at the Cause drew me out of myself and into a lot of interesting places.

Personally, I have reacted to the implosion of my community by isolating myself from the ‘risk’ of other people. I have tried to do several albums myself to keep from relying on others. If someone is a good producer, why do I not want to use him? If someone has good musical ideas, why do I not want to use him? Am I trying to keep my portion of the pie as big as possible – or do I want the music to be as good as it can be? I am seeing the idiocy of not using the people that God has placed in my life that are willing and able to use those talents to help me. God will give you a bigger pie if you need it. There is no shortage of pies in Heaven.

Maybe you have been hitting your head against the wall trying to do something alone that you used to do easily with others. My buddy told me this African proverb the other day,

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

God is with you – go far.

To be honest, part of me rebels when I hear that, ‘do the best with what you have been given’. The idea that I have been given a finite amount of talents and that those talents are less than someone else’s offends me.  Do I have the humility to walk in my talents and maximize their return while in the shadow of someone else?

I used to think of the parable of the talents like the american dream. Work hard and you will eventually achieve the master servant status. I also had this weird idea that I wasn’t the head servant because of some character flaw that the Lord was working out.  As soon as I learned to control my temper or forgive, then the Lord would promote me.

The Kingdom of God is so different than this world we live in – especially America. We teach our kids and believe for ourselves that we can do anything. This may be true, but SHOULD we? As an artist I know that having a crowd of 1500 is way more gratifying than 15. It is horribly depressing to be small.  I heard an interview with David Grey where the interviewer asked him if he wished that he was still underground and he said, “God, no”. He went on to say how tough it is to live in that place of trying to make it.

Living with a smaller sphere of influence and being faithful with that sphere is imperative. The servant who buried his talent was essentially saying – “this is not enough for me to use”, or maybe he was embarrassed of it. There are advantages to being smaller, though. You have more time for other stuff. You can live somewhat of a normal life. People that are doing stadiums or writing best-sellers sometimes can’t enjoy the simple things that make life so enjoyable.

These are just my reflections and I hope that you can find some cool stuff in it. Maybe you can take some of these questions deeper in your own life. I encourage you to listen to the sermon at http://www.elevationchurch.org . It may not be up until tomorrow, but it is called something like, “Calling not Competition”.

For those of you not familiar with the series, it is an apocalyptic drama where the US is overrun with zombies and the characters in the series are trying to survive the best that they can. It’s pretty intense, but raises some big questions and I feel plays them out in good ways.

Skipping ahead, the group is staying on the farm of a retired veterinarian named, Hershel. The group is finally getting to a good place –  eating, resting, and having a bit of a reprieve from the nightmare that they had been in for the past several months. Hershel has a secret that he keeps from the group – he keeps all of the zombies that come on to his land locked up in his barn. He keeps them in the hope that one day there will be a cure and his friends and family will be restored to him.

It is a naive hope, and one that very well could have killed him. The group eventually breaks down the door to the barn and kills all the zombies as Hershel looks on.

So, that’s the setup – you could watch this episode if you like, Episode 7: Pretty Much Dead Already.

As I watched this, I saw myself as Hershel. A delusional man with good intentions, but on the fast track to extinction. Sometimes I make my own reality and convince myself that things in my life are not dangerous or don’t need to be dealt with. When I do that, I endanger myself and those around me. I know it’s crazy, but in a way I felt freed as I watched the barn be emptied.

Hershel was a religious man. He read his bible and was kind to the group by allowing them to stay on his farm. He was sincere and loved. Sometimes we think of a religious person as a Pharisee or super-evangelist driving a Bentley. The reality is that religion is trying to ‘fix’ things or ourselves apart from God. Religion is locking things in a barn and putting a smile on. Religion is creating an alternate reality where we ignore things that can and will kill us. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”.

I know that this has been a weird post. I would encourage you to watch that episode if you have Netflix and are allowed. There is an urgency there that may help to translate what I’ve written here. Maybe the Lord would reveal some things to you that you have locked away and decided to handle yourself – I pray He would.

• I would never buy my own razors, toothbrushes, etc…
• I would never go to the doctor
• I wouldn’t go to counseling or seek out a male mentor

It wasn’t that I didn’t see the value in those things, but I was deferring taking care of myself to someone else(my wife in this case) as some codependent kind of affirmation. My disregard of my physical or emotional health was a means of manipulation to those that I was closest to. I wanted them to be worried – I wanted them to take care of me.

I know that this gets acted out on a lot of ways by a lot different actors. You didn’t get invited on a trip with your friends so you distance yourself and ‘force’ them to fix you. I didn’t get to play at the festival that all my friends got to play at – so I sabotage myself in the hopes that someone will notice. Cold shoulders, loaded texts, silence, etc…

I was watching “Biggest Loser” last night with Jessie and one of the contestants said something amazing. “Being healthy isn’t a chore – it’s a gift”. So true. I would go one step further and say, “it’s a gift you give yourself”. 

My emotional, physical, and spiritual health is not my wife’s responsibility. It is not my friend or parent’s responsibility. They may want and try to give it to us, but it is simply not theirs to give. I know for me – my journey to health started with forgiveness. It was not easy or pretty – I had to move my morbidly-obese spiritual man in ways that he was not used to moving. I removed a lot of expectations that were never going to be fulfilled from myself and others. TD Jakes says that “Forgiveness is a gift that you give yourself”. It is true that I ripped my anecdote off this, but I’m sure that the Biggest Loser contestant wasn’t a TD Jakes follower.

Removing expectations from people is great because it allows them to be who they are. It allows them to act freely without fear of consequence from you, AND it allows you to change your perception of who they are. I know that in my case, I simply had a wrong image of who people were in my life that was shaped by my expectations of them. No wonder I was constantly disappointed by them…

Healing is one thing. Only Christ can completely heal, but health is something that is my responsibility. It is a gift that I give myself!

I am trying to be proactive about my happiness as well these days. I’m trying to take vitamins, exercise, etc.  I even bought a light therapy lamp. This is a really bright light about the size of a space heater that deluges you with safe light to combat the winter blues.  Experts call it SAD – or Seasonal Affective Disorder. I don’t think I have it, but I do think that it helps me on some level. Closing my eyes for 15-30 minutes with my face in a lamp is actually a bit of a joy for me these days. A time of meditation, reflection, while my vitamin D12 is restored.

My forays into taking care of myself are another story entirely, but I did want to leave this with you. Light is important. It was the first thing that God created. There are more scriptures about light than probably any other noun in the bible. Living in the light is a choice. I reflect on this as I sit in front of my silly lamp every morning. I take myself out of my goblin stronghold and walk out under the fierce blue sky. I want my deeds to be in the light and not hidden away in darkness.

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither does anyone light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on a stand so it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men. That they may see your good deeds and praise your father who is in heaven. MIV(Mark International Version)

1. I give something to someone(time,money,etc)
2. They don’t respond how I want them to
3. I am frustrated and angry at the very person I was trying to bless

I think this is a ‘taker’ response and I’m asking the Lord to show me how to be a ‘giver’.

One idea going through my mind is that I have never really known how to receive from others. It stands to reason that if you don’t know how to receive, you may not know how to give? People have given me encouragement, money, cars – I don’t know what to do with that. Is a simple ‘Thank you’ enough? How do you receive from people or more importantly, the Lord? I have realized that my inability to receive is related to the fact that I am uncomfortable that I haven’t earned what’s given. I am very comfortable with the pattern of sowing and reaping, but the thought of just receiving makes me a little nervous. I think that I have gotten the two confused along the way. They are totally different.

 I am asking the Lord, ‘What is blocking me from simply receiving from You?’.

Is getting in shape, finding a new job, or being in a small-group a worthwhile resolution? Absolutely.  Are they things that I should be doing everyday? Probably. I haven’t really heard the Lord’s voice on any of them specifically, though.

This post doesn’t have anything to do with New Year’s resolutions – it’s all a setup. I hope that you are wildly successful with all that is in your heart for 2013. It is more about where my expectations and heart are. I’ve been bouncing around counselors for the past year and a half and have eventually settled into one that I really like.  An hour into my latest complaint at our session it dawns on me.

“My <blank> will never be enough and Thank God for that”.

My <blank> may have been enough at some point to keep me secure and validated, but not anymore. Insert anything there and it’s applicable – Friends, Job, Career, Wife, Car, etc.  

I am learning a new value system these days and consequently trying to find my “Enough” in Christ. Steven Furtick’s children would always ask him the question, “Then What?”. He brought that out in a sermon the other day and it stuck with me. So, what if my relationship is mended, “Then What?”. What if I get a new job, “Then What?”.  So often my “resolution” is just a delaying of the inevitable, “Then What?”. I’m back at square one with no idea of who I am or a confident direction to take.

I’m not championing a monastic lifestyle and saying that only God is enough so don’t waste your time on anything else. Maybe it’s just something that you can file away in your rolodex for another day. That day when the cracks start to appear and humanity becomes all too apparent in your life. “Before the silver cord is severed(Ecclesiates 12:6)”.

The Blessing of “Not Enough” is only that He is “Enough”.

Happy 2013!

Artists are especially susceptible to this, myself included. I have never worked with horses or especially liked them, but I see the parallels in their breaking process. The rider has to break the will of the horse to where the only outside voice that they respond to is the rider’s. I as an artist have had many internal and external voices speaking to me and creating expectations for my life, ministry, family, etc. I was in a place that I felt I was doing so much and not being successful at any of it. The Lord’s voice was not being heard and He had to break me for my own good.

I won’t go into the details of my breaking, but suffice it to say that I was stretched beyond what I ever thought I could bear. I’m not sure that I could have made my process move along any faster or bypassed any of it. I feel like I fell out of the dumb-ass tree and hit every limb on the way down – so maybe I was a tougher nut to crack than most.  Even today, I can’t honestly say that the pain I’ve felt has been worth it, but who likes pain anyways?

I can tell you that the voice of God is reminding me who I am, and the other voices are not quite as loud as they were.  I am thankful for things that I had taken for granted in the past or thought were mine by some divine right.

Matthew 21:44 says about Christ “And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”

I know that I have ‘laid down’ and ‘reclined’ on the rock before, but it wasn’t until I ‘falled’ that I was broken. Falling is not an act that we can conjure – it is something that happens to us. Thank God that the rock that we fall on is Good and that He Loves us so.

I deposited my paycheck yesterday. I remember how hard I worked to get that project done and the sacrifices that Jessie and I made for me to work those 60 hour weeks. In all of that intention and puritan work ethic, I don’t even touch the satisfaction that an offhand encounter with God creates.

It got me thinking. A fifteen minute encounter with the Holy Spirit that I wasn’t even planning on is infinitely more powerful than 2 weeks of my own creation. Why do I not do this more?

I don’t know, but I do have some thoughts. The verse came to mind in John 13:9 where Jesus was washing his disciples feet and Simon Peter objects initially saying, “you shall never wash my feet.” 

He eventually relents after Jesus says, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

Simon Peter’s answer is the one floating in my mind, Peter dropped to his knees leaning forward toward Jesus and cried out, “Then, Lord, not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Maybe one of the things keeping me from enjoying the Presence of God on a regular basis is this ‘dirt’ that Christ is washing off in the passage. I know that this scripture has many meanings, but could it be that Jesus was cleaning his disciples just because he wanted to spend time with them? Maybe it’s not our responsibility to clean ourselves  – maybe we never could? Maybe that’s why he came in the first place?

I have my seasons in life when I am disciplined and purposeful in my pursuit of Him. I have two small children now and a 15 minute window is all I get some mornings. That’s not enough for me to go through my obsessive-compulsive journal, bible, and self-improvement book, but it is enough time for Him to clean me.  Maybe that’s all I need. A removal of the dirty film on my spirit to feel Him and His Heart towards me all day long!

This is the first post that I have written in over 4 years.  Ironically, that is how old my son is.  It would be a mistake for me to try to catch everyone up on what is going on in my life right now. Those of you that are close to me, know and I am grateful to you all. I would like to say that through the past 4 years of my life, God has been good to me.  I know that it has broken His heart to see the lessons that I have had to learn, but I am a better person in the end. I hope to write more, but we will see

I was driving the other day as I am prone to do and my defensive driving instinct noticed a bad one in my peripheral. The blessed soul was in the right-turn only lane taking a left over 2 lanes of traffic. A little voice spoke to me and said, ‘Positioning isn’t always an indication of intention’. I was immediately convicted of this truth in my own life.  I realized that just like that driver, I had positioned myself in a place where I was unfeeling and unreachable. My ‘intentions’ were not to stay there or even to be there in the first place, but my ‘positioning’ did not give that impression to those around me. In my mind, I was progressing – I was waiting for the light to change and to take a left across two lanes of traffic. How disastrous would that be?

People can’t read your mind. Position yourself so that your intentions are clear.

Merry Christmas, mark