Disillusion

I was singing these words to my son today while getting him dressed, “all my life You have been faithful, all my life You have been so, so good.” 

And the words caught me for a moment, as I looked into Lennox’ big brown eyes as he watched me sing. Some day I’ll have to explain why I sing the phrase “all my life You have been faithful.” I’ll have to show him and tell him why those are not just words I mindlessly sing. 

Those words have deep meaning. They’ve come from years of faithfulness. Years of serving. Painful seasons. Hard seasons. Humbling seasons. 

I think when we’re young it’s so easy to get disillusioned. We have expectations of exactly how things should happen, how things should look, and when it’s different the disappointment hits hard. We start to wonder, “where are you, God?” “Why did you let this happen?” “Why didn’t you stop this?” 

Believe me, I get it. These were questions I was asking not that long ago. 

I think we misinterpret the faithfulness of God. I think sometimes we think because God is good, he won’t let bad things happen to us. Because he’s faithful, he’ll keep us from suffering. Because we do all the “right things” nothing should be going wrong. 

But that’s not what faithfulness is. Faithfulness means that when I stand in the fire, he stands with me. Faithfulness means when I’m walking in the valley of the shadow of death, he’s walking with me. Faithfulness means that whatever comes, he is with me. 

Sometimes we wait to see the big miracle, but it doesn’t come. We lived that last year in the Madrid home. We waited and believed for a big miracle. We didn’t see it. We woke up on June 15, 2018 and saw nothing. There was no big miracle. We were at a complete loss. We didn’t know where to go, where to start, what to do, nothing. We had no answers.

We were being catapulted into a new realm of faith and trust. One we never would have asked for, or hoped for. 

Since then, we’ve seen miracles. New opportunities, new jobs, etc. But we don’t celebrate the job as if that’s the only expression of God’s faithfulness. We celebrate his faithfulness because he was faithful to us when there was no job. I believe it is the kindness of God, the nature of God, to provide for us. But faithfulness is not just what he does, it’s who He is. 

We saw his faithfulness that whole summer when we had no answers. We saw his goodness in the nothing. 

Disillusionment bothers me. Because we’re all susceptible to it. We all go through hard things. We all face heartbreak and heartache. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the only person who has had to face something hard and that makes your disillusionment ok. This is something everyone can understand. 

What changes things is when we understand who God really is, in spite of everything we see with our eyes happening around us. 

You have to know that He is for you. In every situation, He is for you. He is working out the very best for you in every moment. When you’re lost, and hurting, He is right there with you. He doesn’t disappear when things go crazy. He’s the Rock. He doesn’t move, change, or leave.   

This is why we have to learn the secret of being content, no matter what comes. The Apostle Paul said it so well, “For I can do everything through Christ, who strengthens me.” 

Life is hard sometimes. But don’t give up. If you hear nothing else, hear that. Don’t give up. It won’t be dark forever, there is HOPE. 

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ,^c who gives me strength. Even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty.

Philippians 4:11-14

Songwriting

A while back I was asked to share about my songwriting process. To be honest, it’s taken me some time to figure out what to say about it. 

And honestly, we have to dig a little deeper in order to have this conversation. I’m not going to sit here and give you 10 tips on how to be a better songwriter. Sure, I can give you some ideas, and share my thoughts on what I do. But it’s bigger than that. 

We need to talk about identity. 

Here’s the truth: I’m not a “songwriter.” That’s not a title I carry around or identify myself by. For a long time growing up I was trying to figure out that “title.” How many songs did I need to write in order to consider myself a “songwriter?” How many stories, or poems to call myself a “writer” and not be considered a total fraud? 

I think we really like titles. It makes things easy and we can fit everything into a certain box that makes sense to us. But I could never find a title that fit. Truly. In my head I tried on a dozen different titles and none of them seemed to embody my identity. Like a puzzle piece that’s almost right, but still not quite, nothing fit. 

About 2 months ago, I had this revelation about my identity. I realized I’m a storyteller. And I know lots of people like to claim that title, but there’s nothing cliche about it for me. Because let me tell you, I can look back over my whole life and see how being a storyteller is entwined throughout every moment. All the way back to childhood. It’s in everything I do. It’s how I view the world; how I view people.

This was a very important epiphany for me. It changed the way I view what I do. 

So first of all: 

You need to know who you are. 

If you don’t know who you are, you’ll forever write from an imposter’s point of view. You’ll waste countless years writing from a perspective that isn’t yours and doesn’t fit. It won’t ever communicate what you want it to, because it’s not YOU. You’ll be standing outside the window, looking in at what you want to say but never being able to get to it. 

So first things first, you need to discover who you are. 

• I would suggest a lot of conversations with the Lord, and a lot of time in the Word. But that’s just a quick side note. 

Once you understand that, the rest gets a lot easier. 

For me, songwriting is equal parts process and discipline. 

Sometimes I just have to sit down and work and work at a song, and try a million different things until you find the thing that works. It involves throwing out a lot of ideas, even ones you really wanted to work. It's not giving up quickly when the idea isn't there. The discipline of spending time and effort on an idea is so valuable because sometimes that discipline really does lead you to the result you wanted. Believe me, I've sat at keyboard and played the same chord progression dozens and dozens of times over trying to shape an idea. It's worth it. 

But other times I have found there’s a significant process to (song)writing. I have songs that have sat on the proverbial shelf for years until one day an idea hits me for it. I have songs that I wrote 10-15+ years ago that had a verse or chorus I didn’t like so I didn’t finish the song because I couldn’t “find” the right part. But then I take it out one day, play through it and find the exact phrase that was missing. I’ve learned I have to be ok with that process. Some songs take time to finish. I think songs have seasons. It’s possible I couldn’t finish the song because that song isn’t “in season” yet. Might sound weird, but it’s definitely been true in my experience. 

It was important for me to realize I can’t force something to happen. I’ve yet to see that produce anything. If I try to force something to fit just because I want be done with a song, it’s rarely (if ever) what I want it to be. 

I’ve also found that sometimes I don’t know what I want a song to be, but I definitely know what I don’t want it to be. And I've had to learn to be ok with that tension until I find what I'm looking for. 

Writing is spiritual to me. I can’t just sit down and write something for the sake of writing. There has to be purpose in it. And for me, the purpose always leans toward the eternal. 

I tend to find creativity for it’s own sake is pointless, irrelevant, even. I’m not a good enough writer to sit down and throw something on a page for no reason and have it turn into something worth reading. The truth is, I don’t enjoy reading things that have no purpose. Because for me, it’s about storytelling. Storytelling for no purpose is not really storytelling. 

People need to be inspired. 

People need hope. 

Those are huge priorities to me in writing. It’s fine to write about hard things, but I think you have to give people a light on the horizon somewhere. 

That’s a window into my process, if you want to talk tips or how to write that’s a whole other thing. 

But if you have questions, don’t be shy. I love questions.