Welcome Back!

Wow, it has been quite a while since my last post! If you have been following my blog posts, you would know that my last one happened all the way back in August.. and it is now January 4th. And truth be told, it is because of the fact that it is January 4th that I am feeling compelled to write this post in the first place. Call it a reflection on how my 2019 was or call it chasing a trend of how everyone around me is recapping their own year, call it whatever you want. I just know that I have had this post weighing on my heart for probably at least 2 and a half months, but have not found the time to write it out until now. So if you are willing, I’d like to invite you to take a journey reviewing some of the things that have happened to me this year, some of the things that I have learned, and some of the ways that I have seen God begin to shape and mold me into the man that he wants me to become. With that being said, let’s begin!

As with every one of these blog posts, I would like to share a song that God put into my life that inspired me into action. In this case, that song is by Matthew West, and it is called Truth be Told. From the moment I first heard this song, I knew that it was going to have a huge impact on me, and that I was going to need to write a blog about it. The song begins with a simply beautiful and catchy piano piece that I have literally had stuck in my head for 2 months now. The piece is pure, and simple, and for whatever reason, when I hear that piece come on, I feel a great sense of hope and joy. From there, the song hits the ground running by calling out some of the lies that we tend to believe in our lives, lies that hold us captive. The song begins with “Lie number 1, you’re supposed to have it all together. And when they ask how you’re doing, just smile and tell ’em ‘Never better’. ” Now I feel like I can say this with great certainty, but that is ALL of us if we are really being honest. I cannot tell you how many times in my life someone has asked me how I was doing and I answered with “Never Better” when in reality I was as far away from “Never Better” possible. In fact, I think that an argument could be made that until I came out from the shadow of fear and shame that I hid in when my addiction was a secret, I had never truly ever felt “Never Better”. From there West continues by saying “Lie number 2, everybody’s life is perfect except yours. So keep your messes and your wounds and your secrets safe with you behind closed doors.” Again, I feel very confident in saying that I am not the only one who has felt this way before. But it would be an understatement if I just said “yeah, that has been me before” because that was legitimately how I lived my ENTIRE LIFE up until the Faithful and True workshop. The song continues by going into it’s chorus saying “Well Truth be told, the Truth is rarely told. I say ‘I’m fine, yeah I’m fine, oh I’m fine, hey I’m fine’, but I’m not. I’m broken. And when it’s out of control I say ‘It’s under control’ but it’s not… and you know it. I don’t know why it’s so hard to admit it, when being honest is the only way to fix it. There’s not failure no fall, there’s no sin you don’t already know… so let the Truth.. be told.” I want you to read that chorus again, because I want you to FEEL the weight of those words. I KNOW that we have all felt those words on a DEEP level, and I know that I am not the only person who has said that he was fine when he wasn’t. We have all tried to hide how we truly are feeling because we have all at one point or another believed the lie that we are all alone in how we feel and that if people truly knew what we were going through, then they would look at us differently. Well if you would let me, I would like to spend the rest of this blog post telling you my own experiences with that belief from this past year, and try to convey some of the lessons that God has taught me over the past year. And hopefully, God is able to have just one of these lessons resonate with you, or encourage you in some way.

I recently saw a post on social media asking people to describe their 2019 in one word, so I thought that might be a good idea for this post. My one word to describe 2019 might surprise some of you who know how my year went, but that word is actually “important”. And more so than that, I hope that with time, that word turns into “pivotal”. I have had a very tough year this year, but the one thing I keep coming back to is the idea that God allowed my life to completely fall into shambles so that he could show me just how much I need him. And I use the present tense of need VERY deliberately here because I NEED him every day if I am going even have a chance at making it through the day in the way that I want to. So I hope that with time, 2019 can be remembered as the most pivotal year in my life. And that is kind of the first idea that I want to talk about, the first major lesson that God taught me this year that I hope you are able to learn from. And that is that there will be suffering in this life, but it is all a part of a greater plan. I have had to endure some of the most painful things that have happened in my life this year, and each one of them brought me closer to God. God used the ending of my last relationship, and the admission of my addiction to show me that I DESPERATELY need him, and so long as I keep trying to be my own God, I am never going to find the peace and comfort I need. And God also used the deep hurt of Corvin’s withdrawl from our school to let me work through some of the doubts that I had about him, about this world, and about my faith. And through each of those things, I found myself drawing closer to him than I ever had before. Now, does that make the suffering easier, or does it make the terrible things that happen in the world make sense all of a sudden? No, absolutely not. But there is suffering in this world BECAUSE we are a broken and lost people. Part of being human is making mistakes and being imperfect, so it goes to make sense that if we live in a world full of humans, then it is going to be FAR from perfect. Are we ever going to fully understand why bad things happen in this world, or why a sweet, innocent child like Corvin can be put through so much? No, unfortunately not. It is not our place to know what God is planning and doing. But I think that the biggest thing that I can take away from the trials I experienced this year is to trust that God has a plan, and that plan will work out for our good, and his glory in the end. A verse that really helped me understand why we have to suffer in this life is Romans 8:17

The second big lesson that I learned about myself this year is that I am a much more egotistical person that I originally thought that I was. Now, I understand that for those of you who know me, that statement might come as a shock because I don’t behave in the way that most egomaniacs behave. But just because I am not a narcissist doesn’t mean that I don’t struggle with my pride and ego. I have discovered that the way that I most frequently let my ego show is through my insistence that I can do things on my own (like beating my addiction), and how I consistently set people up to feed me compliments by downplaying their original compliment. Now, for some of you, those two things might not seem like they are too dangerous. I mean, it’s not like I am out here hurting people or treating others badly.. so why does it matter if I think that I can fix my problems on my own and fish for a few more compliments? Well I’d love to explain! For me, those examples, and any other form of my pride or ego showing up, are dangerous because they pull me away from God. When I believe that I can beat my addiction on my own, and I don’t fully commit to seeking God’s help in the process, I am telling myself that I can make a better God in my life than God does. And naturally, that belief is going to pull me further and further away from him. I don’t know if any of you have ever tried to make a life altering change, but I know that I don’t posses the self-control and mental fortitude to do that on my own. As for my other method of my ego acting out, it is a problem that I fish for more compliments in the way that I do because it is another way for me to make things about myself. I have been extremely blessed to be given the opportunity to do something that I love, and to be fairly good at it. But when I take the compliments I receive and try to fish for more of them, I turn this wonderful gift that God has given me into something that is all about me. I try to take the glory that belongs to God, and keep it for myself. And that is a problem. So what is the point of me telling you about all the ways my ego affects me? To hopefully help you see just how destructive a person’s pride and ego can be, and mostly, to remind MYSELF just how destructive my own pride and ego is. I hope that those of you who actually read this will do me a favor. I simply ask that you observe my actions, and you remind me of just how destructive my ego can be if you find that I am letting it lead me again. Because if I have learned anything this year, it is that I am not capable of beating all my problems on my own, and that I need a savior to save me from myself.

Finally, the last big thing that happened to me this year, was that I truly FELT how much God loves me. For most of my life, I have not known how to handle my emotions; and that has been a problem because I am a very emotional guy. If you know me, you know that I feel a lot of emotions, and I feel them very deeply. I don’t often feel things in small doses. When I have an emotion, it comes over me like a tidal wave. And for most of my life, when that tidal wave started to sweep me away, I would try to reach out for something to grab onto that would save me from the tidal wave. I would try to make the tidal wave of emotions stop. Now there are many ways that we all try to still the waters inside of us. For some of us, we lash out at others and let our emotions control us by letting the tidal wave sweep us away. Still for others, we bury those emotions deep inside and try to make a shell around us that we think will protect us from anything that the tidal wave bumps us into. And yet still for many others of us, we try to medicate our feelings by seeking some kind of drug that will make the tidal wave feel like it is going away. The problem with that is that we don’t actually make the tidal wave rescind back into the ocean, we just latch onto a tree nearby and close our eyes thinking that we just escaped the flood. None of these options actually help us navigate through the tidal wave of emotions that we might be feeling, and in fact, each of these options lead us further and further into trouble! Yet too often, we are not taught how to deal with the emotional trauma and damage we experience as kids, so we just end up going into survivor mode. We do whatever we have to just to make it through the day. Which means that for many of us, including myself, we will reach out for some kind of drug that will numb the emotions and help us make it through another day. That was me for most of my life, because I would use the high you receive from an orgasm as a way to diffuse the emotions I might be feeling. However, it wasn’t until this year that I learned that there is another way. I don’t have to seek out my drug when I become overwhelmed by the tidal wave of emotions I feel. God has shown me this year that there is another choice. Through his word, and the wise counselling I have received, I have learned that I can talk about what I am feeling with others, and begin to learn how to deal with my emotions in a healthy manner. I am learning that there is another option when I start to get swept away by that tidal wave. Instead of looking for a tree to hold onto, I can look up and see that there is a boat that is rowing up beside me, and that someone is coming to save me from myself. And he wants to show me how to navigate this flood of emotions I am feeling in order to get me back to safety again. And that person is Jesus. By helping me understand how I deal with my emotions, and by showing me just how loved I am, EVEN when I do still reach out for that tree (which admittedly is more often than I would like it to be), Jesus has not only shown me the true meaning of why he died on the cross for me, but he has also allowed the Holy Spirit to get into my heart and let me FEEL just what it means to be CHOSEN. God wanted me in heaven with him, and he knew about all the ways I would mess up BEFORE he decided that. He sent the rescue man after me, to save me from all the ways I mess myself up. And there is no way that I can ever repay him for that. But here is the beauty of it all… I don’t have to. All I am called to do is try my best to reflect God’s glory to the rest of the world. So now I don’t have to reach out for things that will ultimately hurt me when I see that tidal wave rushing in, because I know that my savoir will be right there in it with me, and he is going to help me navigate through the flood waters of my emotions.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. If you recall, at the beginning of this post I talked about how the song “Truth be Told” by Matthew West has had such an impact on my life, and I talked about how the lyrics of that song stuck out to me. I don’t want to live those lyrics anymore. I have made a conscience effort to try and live every day of my life in a true and authentic way. Gone are the days where I would try and lie about the things that I was going through, never digging down deep to get to the heart of the issue. Because of all the things that God has revealed to me this year, and because God has drawn me more near to him than ever before, I feel I can stand and say that I am starting to take steps towards living in the way that God has called me to live. And part of living that way is by letting the truth be told, both today, and every day. I hope that you found this post to be helpful, and I want to thank you for taking the time to read it. God bless you, and I pray that you too are able to let the Truth be Told in your own life.

Welcome Back!

I know that it has been a while since my last blog post, so I wanted to take the time this evening to update everyone on where I am at in my life. Since my last post, I have seen a LOT of changes happen within my life, and these changes have come in every shape and size. I have undergone MASSIVE changes in regards to my sexual addiction, and how I interact/ view women; and I have undergone MANY smaller changes that impact my every day, day-to-day self. I have gone from hating change, and fighting it at every corner, to embracing it and craving it. It is kind of insane just how much different of a person I am now, as opposed to the person that I was just 4 months ago. So if you are willing, I would like to share with you just how I got to the place that I am at now. Let’s begin!

For those of you who have been following my blog for a while, you would know that in every single post I have, I include some kind of song that has really impacted me, and help spur me on to action in some way; and this post will be no different. The song that I want to highlight is actually a song that hit me at the perfect time, and it is a song called “Change” by NF. I first heard this song while I was at work, the week after I got back from the workshop in Minnesota, and when I say that this song stopped me in my tracks, I mean it LITERALLY stopped me in my tracks! I honestly had to stop what I was doing and focus on the song because it was that emotional for me. The song talks about how NF (Nate) constantly struggles with the fact that he knows he needs to make a change, but he just can’t seem to find the strength to make that change. For most of the song, Nate talks about how he doesn’t like where his life is at. He is always second guessing himself, and putting himself in harmful situations because those are the situations that he has become accustomed to. He knows that what he is doing is not healthy, but his is scared to take the risk of stepping out into the unknown in order to get the help that he needs. This is something that I can strongly relate to, because for years, I never saw my addiction as something that was killing me. I knew that it was bad, and I hated it, but I would rather have just continued on living in the shadow of my guilt and shame, than step out into the light and actually deal with the real problems at hand. Right before the main chorus comes in, Nate says “looking for something in my life to be inspired again, I like to walk around and act like I don’t know what it is, but I know what it is, I just never wanna commit.” What he is looking for is change, and he is trying to convince himself to commit to it and find it. Well that line really hit me, because that is EXACTLY where I was before my world sort of blew up earlier this year when Amber and I broke up. Thankfully, God used that hurt and brokenness to spur me on to ACTUALLY seek that change, which is what led me to attend the Faithful and True: Men of Valor workshop in Minnesota. And it was at this workshop that I was able to finally get that change that I have so desperately been needing.

To say that my weekend in Minnesota was anything other than life changing would be the biggest understatement of my lifetime. I arrived to Faithful and True on the first day feeling very hopeless, and with a lot of self-loathing. I had just acted out the day before I left to come here, and that came in response to some deep feelings of loneliness that I felt while on my family vacation in Europe. So I did not arrive in Eden Prairie feeling all that great about myself. Over the course of the first day, we got to know all the other men who were there that the workshop with us, and then we did something that I did not expect us to do.. we started to look back at our lives, and especially our childhoods, in order to try and find where there may be some lingering trauma. This exercise proved to be very easy for me to do, because I knew that I had a lot of lingering trauma from my childhood. For those of you who don’t know me, I had a very tough childhood because my father was an angry, abusive, alcoholic, and that made everyone in my families life a living hell. And then when I was in 4th grade, my parents got divorced, and it was a very messy divorce. So for me to say that I had some lingering trauma would be putting it lightly. However, I never thought too much about that trauma, because I always thought that I had beaten it. I figured that since I came out of that experience a good person, then I must have beaten it. Well as it turns out, I was VERY wrong. Day one of the workshop ended with a homework assignment, and that homework assignment was to go back and look at our lives, and create what was called a “Life Egg”. This assignment was probably the best thing that every happened to me.

Basically all of Day 2 was spent in our small groups discussing our eggs, and I think that it was during this time that I learned the most about myself, and learned the most about why I act out in the way that I do. Through the use of sharing my egg, I discovered that a lot of the trauma that I have experienced has never been dealt with. And in order to survive the environment that I was in as a child, I had to bury those feelings of hurt and abandonment. Well as it turns out, when you bury your emotions, then only come back up stronger somewhere later in your life. And that was the case for me. However, because I never really learned to deal with those strong emotions, I would just try to find more ways to mask them and bury them. And that is where my addiction to pornography comes into play. One of the biggest things that I learned from this workshop is that a person’s sexual addiction is almost never actually about the sex. It is almost always about dealing with some kind of pain or hurt that we don’t know how to deal with. The reason that we turn to sex in order to deal with those emotions is because when you have an orgasm, there are a bunch of neurochemicals that are released in the brain that are designed to make you feel good. This works in the EXACT same way as an drug addiction works, because both addictions are seeking a chemical response to deal with an emotional issue. So instead of addressing my strong negative feelings, I developed a habit of running to my “drug” in order to suppress those feelings and get rid of them. This then created a viscous cycle where my mind would create a link between any strong negative feeling with my conditioned response to that feeling, making it easier and easier for me to continue to choose my drug.. even if I didn’t want to choose it.

Learning all of that on day 2 was eye-opening for me, because for the first time in my life, I finally had an answer for WHY I acted out in the way that I acted out, but if you read that and immediately wondered “Well what do we do now?”, then you read my mind. Thankfully, that was what day 3 was all about. It was on day 3 that I was able to work together with the other men in my small group, and with the leaders at the workshop to come up with a “gameplan” for further action. The game plan started with continuing to seek professional help upon returning home. This is something that I have tried to do, but I am struggling in finding the right person. However I have been meeting with my pastor for counseling every week since I got back which has been VERY helpful. The second thing that they talked about was finding and army or “Team” of men to come near to you and help you through this. These men need to be people who see through your BS, and who want to help you in your recovery, and you have to be willing to let them in on EVERYTHING your are feeling/ going through. Thankfully, I have had a lot of success in finding this team of guys to help me. Right now, I probably have 15-20 men, of varying ages and walks of life, who I am in constant contact with both daily and weekly. The next thing was following the 12 step plan for addiction recovery that was made famous by AA. I have not started this officially, but I have been trying to get a start on it until I can join either an SA group or an AA group. After that they talked about getting in the habit of daily meditation or reflection through the use of a journal. Now I some of you might have read the idea of me keeping a journal and laughed, but I am being completely honest with you in saying that I have picked up journaling, and it has been great for me! It has really made it a lot easier for me to identify my emotions, and then deal with them in a healthy way. And finally, the last big thing that I took away from the game plan was the idea of adding something to my life in order to replace the thing that I am taking away. And since I am taking away this addiction, all that time that I spent focusing on bad things needs to be filled. And I am filling that time with two things. The first thing is that I am getting up every day at 4:30 to workout and have a time for personal/spiritual growth, and the second thing is that I have actually taken up cooking! So each week, I look up a new recipe, and then me and one of my buddies both make the recipe and share how it turned out.

There is still sooooo much more that I want to share, but I fear that this blog has already gone on for longer than I planned. This journey that I have been on over the last 4 months has not been an easy one, but it has been the journey that God planned for me to take. It has been amazing to be able to look back, even just at the last 4 months, and see all the ways that God has been at work in my life. The time I spent in Minnesota honestly was the most important and influencial weekend of my life, and it is because of that weekend that I now truly feel as though I have a relationship with Christ. Every day I wake up wanting to become more of the man that Christ wants me to be, and I chase after that is every way I can. I no longer fear change in my life, I chase after it. I longer hide from my strong negative feelings, I attack them. It is crazy to think that at one point, sharing this story would have scared me stiff, but now, sharing my story is LITERALLY my favorite thing to do! I seek after the difficult conversations now, because I know that is where true growth is, and that is where Christ wants me to be. So thank you for caring about my life enough to read this book to the end, and thank you for sharing in my story with me.

God Bless you, and have a wonderful day.

Sincerely,

Kenny Floyd

Welcome Back!

My how time does fly by.. it honestly felt like just last week that I wrote my last blog, and I just looked up and saw that it has been almost a month since that blog came out. Since then, there has been a lot of change in my life, and a lot of growth. I have had to come to terms with some of the mistakes that I have made, and I have had to come to terms with some of the situations that I have found myself in. Now, I don’t mean to say that as if my last month has been rough, or that I have had a bad time in any way shape or form; because that would simply not be true. Even with the tough things that I have had to go through over the last few weeks, I have never once felt hopeless or distraught because of the situation I was in, and that really can only be contributed to one thing. And that thing is Jesus. Wow… Haha I smile reading this right now because I just realized how ironic that statement was.. because as you are about to find out, Jesus is also the reason that I have been in this constant state of growing (And for those of you who know me, you know I find that the be a VERY uncomfortable state to be in). And if you are willing to hear, I feel compelled to explain that interesting dynamic to you now. So please, pull up a chair and get comfortable, because this is going to be a long, and uncomfortable ride for everyone involved.. but I promise the destination we will get to at the end will be worth it!

At the start of this blog, I mentioned how I have had to come to terms with some of the mistakes that I have made (and sometimes continue to make). The reason why I brought that up was because the entire idea for this blog came from a song called “Mistakes” by Unspoken. This is a song that I have loved ever since I first heard it, and it is because of how I connect to the message behind the song. So if you have never heard the song before, I am going to have to kindly ask you to stop reading this blog, and go listen to the song.

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Ok, are you back? Good! What did you think? Catchy right? Nice beat too? But what about those lyrics? Did they stir you in the same way that they stirred me? To be honest, the lyrics of this song have been calling for me to write this blog since the first time that I heard them, but I only just now getting around to it.. Anyways, I want to briefly talk about the lyrics of the main chorus before I start diving into the meat of this blog, because it is through these lyrics that we are going to analyze everything that comes next. These lyrics will be the lens that we see the entire rest of this blog through. The lyrics for the main chorus go like this: “All of my mistakes, woven through my story, All the mess I make, God use it for your glory, Every wrong turn it’s true, Led me right here to you, I may lose my way, nothing’s greater than your grace, not even my Mistakes.” The reason that these lyrics strike such a solid chord in my heart will be discussed soon, but as a general statement, I absolutely LOVE what they did here. I firmly believe that this is the doctrine that more people need to hear; as opposed to the REPENT REPENT REPENT!! narrative that has ruined Christianity for so many people out there. As a person who makes LOTS of mistakes, it is a special kind of comforting to know that God is USING those mistakes that you thought you were making in order to help bring you closer to him or show you an aspect of his nature that you may have never seen before. And the fact that he weaves these mistakes into our story in order to showcase is glory and majesty, both in our lives and in others, is just absolutely mind-boggling to me. The fact that we can go astray, and even flat out deny who Jesus is, and yet we are still not too far gone to be redeemed by his grace is unfathomable. So as we move forward in this blog, I want you to keep that in mind.

Now, let’s talk about MY mistakes. I mean, that’s why you are hear right? You want to see what kind of mistakes a guy like me could possibly make? I mean, to many of you, I am just that super goofy, yet always kind guy who seems to always be doing the right thing. And I don’t say that to brag or anything, because that is how I have been described directly by many of you who know me! So it would be fair for you to be wondering what kind of mistakes I could have possibly made, because I have fashioned this persona, this façade for you to fall for and believe. Through some deep self reflections, I realized that I act that way because I like the image that it creates for me. I love the idea of me being a super awesome guy, who always does the right thing, and is basically that Christian that everyone wants to be. However, that image that I have created cannot be further from the actual truth of what’s inside of me. I have things that I struggle with, and have struggled with for a long time, that I try to keep locked up and buried away so no one can find them. And I do this because I know that if those secrets were to get out, that façade, that image of who I am might crumble beneath me.. Yet, here I am, about to share on a public space what those secrets are. Now why on Earth would I want to do that? Don’t I know that I could just keep living that lie, and no one would be none the wiser? Well yes, I know I could do that, but I can’t. And the reason I can’t is because of this guy named Jesus Christ.

Here’s the funny thing about Jesus, the thing that I found ironic earlier in this blog. Jesus is both the reason for my comfort and the reason for my anxiety because he has finally been able to get ahold of my heart, and he is showing me that what I have been holding on to, has actually been pulling me away from him. So in order to continue to grow closer in my relationship with him, I am going to have to deal with these giants that are looming over me. I recently finished reading a book called Goliath Must Fall, and the premise of the book was that we all have these giants in our lives that we can’t beat on our own, things such as fear, addiction, and comfort. And these “giants” try to tell us that we are no match for them, that we don’t stand a chance, and that there really isn’t any use in fighting them.. Well here is the plot twist… They’re right! We can’t beat them on our own! And the more we struggle with them, and try to beat them on our own, the deeper and deeper we fall under their control. I have felt this first hand! There is only one person who can defeat these giants, and the “Good News” of the gospel is that he already did! So by me sharing these things I am struggling with, I am really saying “Here Jesus, take this away from me please. I can’t do this on my own, and I need your help in beating this giant.” Because here is the crazy thing about these giants… they really only have power over you in the darkness. When you hide in the shadows, living with the shame that you feel over your actions, you are basically living as a slave to those giants. But when you bring those giants out into the light, then they start to lose their power! So I hope that this blog inspires someone reading that has been struggling with their own giants to bring those giants out of the dark and into the light!

Ok, now that we have explained the song lens that we are looking through when hearing this testimony, and now that we have explained why I am doing this, I think it is time that we get to the point. The reason that I have felt so convicted ever since I first heard that song was because there is a sin/giant that I have been fighting ever since I was in Middle School, and that is the giant of addiction. More specifically, the addiction to lust and pornography. I have lived my life the last 10 years or so in the shadow of this giant because I have always felt so ashamed of the fact that I even started it, and the fact that I could not beat it myself. I have spent countless nights literally crying out to God to take this addiction away from me through some snap of the fingers miracle, yet each morning I wake up the same person. I have tried to have accountability partners who were supposed to keep me from watching porn, but they never really worked. I even knew about the kind of neurological effect that it could have on me, and how it would end up affecting my future relationships, yet I still couldn’t stop. The giant had me locked up. But it wasn’t until recently that I received the wake up call that I needed. I may have “known” that this addiction was going to mess with my natural thought processes in terms of how I view women, but it wasn’t until my last relationship ended that I actually realized the effect that this has had on me. Upon retrospection, I realized that I could not develop any feelings of intimacy with my girlfriend, and that was entirely because I had trained my mind over years of learned habits that the level of intimacy that was designed to be between a man and a woman could be found on a screen. So subconsciously, I never really grew as close to her as we both wanted, which still kills me. And that is a HARD thing to realize. It was never a conscious choice that I made though, it was just something that my brain has trained itself to believe. I know that doesn’t make it any better or easier, but it is just the way it was.

Regardless, it was this realization that scared me into a more drastic kind of action. I immediately decided that what I was doing was not enough, and that I needed to do more, so I contacted one of the pastors at my church, and talked to him about my problem. I also decided that in order for me to make some actual progress with this problem, I was going have to start being a LOT more intentional about my faith walk (which was right about why I started this blog back up) and I was also going to have to seek professional help. This is a major problem for me, and I do not want to let this problem linger on in my life. I do want to get married some day, and I can’t wait for the day when I will get to be a dad myself, but I will not enter into any covenantal relationship with another person when I am a slave to a giant that will not allow me to love my wife the way that I am supposed to. So this July, I will be going to Minnesota to partake in a 3 day workshop that will hopefully help me figure out how to beat this thing. Which brings me back to the point of this blog.. Although I did write this blog to get a HUGE weight off of my chest, I also wrote it for another reason.

I know for a fact that I am not the only person out there who is struggling with something like this. And I also know that I am not the only person who has felt to ashamed to even entertain the idea of stepping into the light. Maybe the person reading this right now is fighting with their own giant. It may not be the giant of addiction, but maybe it is the giant of fear. Or maybe it is the giant of rejection. Whatever the giant is that you are facing, I want you to know that your giant only has control over you in the dark. The minute you step out into the light, and let others know what you are going through is the minute that you start to regain some of your control. But listen, I get it, stepping out into the light is not easy. Believe me, I have told myself that I was going to write this blog for just about every day over the last 3 weeks.. So I understand how hard it is to step into the light! But if you think about it, the reason that it is hard to step into the light is because you are concerned with what other people are going to think of you if they find out what you are really struggling with. So that is where we need everyone who does read this to step up and make those people who are brave enough to admit that they don’t have it all together like they are heard and understand. You cannot make them feel judged or looked down on, because truthfully, they probably already feel that way about themselves. So the ball is in your court now, people who feel like they are already living in the light. We should all try to be a beacon of light for others to gravitate towards, because we know that the more we let others into our issues, the most power we have over those issues. Which leads me to my last point.. I desperately need each and every person who reads this blog to reach out and let me know that they read it and are here for me. I need all the support I can get in this fight because I know that I am not going to be able to do this on my own. I also need as much support as you will give me because I think that I am going to throw up from writing this blog. I honestly feel sick to my stomach writing this, because I am being overcome with the giants’ talk of “What are you doing!? Now everyone is going to know your dirty little secret and they are going to think differently of you!” So please, please, please, reach out to me and offer some support in this. I am hesitant to do this, but it worked out alright for Bob Goff, so I am going to hope that it works out alright for me too.. but for those of you who don’t have any way of contacting me, here is my number: 515-979-7633.

I honestly pray that this blog spoke to someone in some way, and they feel inspired to step into the light with their own struggles. But more than anything, I am ready to actually feel the weight of those words that Unspoken sang. I understand that I am going to make mistakes, and I understand that we are all going to make mistakes, but I pray that we all remember that “nothing’s greater than your grace, not even my mistakes.”

Thank you for reading, and God bless you.

Kenny Floyd

Welcome Back!

It has been almost 2 months now since I finished my 30 day challenge to listen to nothing but Christian music, and a lot has happened since then. Some good things, but a lot of tough things too.. And I decided that it is time to dive back into blogging about my faith because I have felt myself start to fall away from my faith. So I am glad that you are back to experience life with me, and I hope that you get something out of this new style of blogs too!

When I left you guys last, I was just finishing up my last day of the 30-day challenge, and I was feeling really good about my faith, and myself. I was also finishing up spring break when I was wrapping that challenge up, and I was definitely in a good mood from that. However, as I sort of alluded to, time has not been very kind to me since I ended my challenge. I have had a number of things happen that have pulled me away from my faith a little bit, and have just left me feeling empty. The biggest thing that has pulled me away from God during this time is my struggle with self control, and shame. When I was following the challenge, one of the big things that I noticed was that I was exhibiting a lot greater amounts of self control and I do not believe that to be some strange coincidence. I have been doing some pretty heavy soul searching lately, and I think that I have discovered three things that have pulled me away from my faith, and back down off of that “mountain” that I felt I was on at the end of my challenge. So for the rest of this blog, I would like to share with you what I believe those three things to be, and my idea for fixing them and getting back to where I believe that God wanted me to be.

1. The first thing that I believe pulled me away from God like I said was my struggle with self control. Self control has been something that I have battled with my whole life, and it has been the thing that has kept me from actually FEELING what I know God says about me to be true. This lack of self control has driven me into the pit of despair time and time again, and yet each time I seem to come out of that bit thanks to the grace of God, only to fall right back into it after God lets me walk on my own again. Huh.. I never really realized how perfect that metaphor is for how I am feeling until now, but that is honestly what it feels like. I feel like an infant who is just learning how to walk. Except my walking is my faith walk, and the parent who is holding me up in order to let me walk is God. Everytime I feel close to God, I tend to make the right choices, and avoid situations that would tempt me into doing something that I don’t want to do. But it is after a couple weeks of that feeling that I start to notice some of those old thoughts creep back into my head. Those thoughts like “You can do this one time Kenny, it’s not going to be that big of a deal.” “Well you already did it once today, so you ruined today. Why stop now?” and “You did so well this week, you deserve this.” And each time, I seem to say to that voice, “You know what? You’re right.” Yet every time that I do that, I am really telling my maker, “I don’t need you. I can handle this on my own.” So God lets go of me, and shows me that I can’t walk without him. I will just fall every time. So my thought for trying to break this chain is to try and grow my faith with Christ. I think that the more I want to learn and know about Christ, the more I will not want to stray away from him. Now, do I think that I will be perfect? Absolutely not. But the whole point of this journey is to learn and understand that I don’t have to be perfect, because Jesus already was for me. So the practical step for how I am going to achieve this goal is that I am going to do one big thing every day to learn more about God and his plan for me. So whether that is listening to a podcast or sermon, or doing a blog post, I will need to do something each day to put my focus on Christ.
2. The second thing that has pulled me away from my faith is the fact that I have let the pressures of life block out my view of God. It has taken a lot of reflecting, but I honestly think that the reason the challenge worked for me so well is because I kept so much of my attention fixed on God. Every day I was listening to different songs and thinking of what I was going to write about them later that day. This caused me to think more about God throughout my day to day life, and I need that!! We all need that! The more we focus on God, the better off that we will be! So my fix for this problem is that I am going to try and get back into this blog. I am going to continue to find songs that speak to me, and share them with all of you on this blog. I will not be doing that every day like I used to though, because I will be doing other things to focus on God during the day as well. But that is what I feel God wants me to do, in order to really grow in my relationship with him.
3. The last thing that I feel has pulled me away from God is the fact that God let me get pulled away from him. I firmly believe that God let’s bad things happen in our lives because he knows that the dark makes the light that much better. And he knows that the most growth occurs during a time of testing. In the bible, and time that God wanted to test a character, and see what they were all about, he would send them out into the “wilderness”. The “wilderness” is exactly where I feel I have been living the last too months. Each night has seemed wild, and I have at times felt like I was struggling to control my own actions. I did not arrive in the “wilderness” by accident though. I was placed there because God wanted to see if my faith was really for real this time, or if I was still in need of him for me to be able to walk. I need to get to a place that God can put me in the “wilderness” and I can hold true to his word and still be the person he wants me to be. The way that I am going to try and fix this problem is by becoming a stronger prayer. I know that I will most certainly have a tough time with whatever God chooses to put me through, but I know that whatever it is, I have two choices: either trust God and his providence in my life, or try and grab the reigns back and take control. But here’s the thing.. every single time I try to take the reigns back, I end up crashing the carriage. So I think that I am going to need to pray daily about God giving me the ability to trust him and his plan, and to know that he will never bring harm against me. And that all his ways are good! Just as it says in Jeremiah 29:11.

Again, thank you for reading this blog. It really means a lot to me that you would want to come alongside me and experience life together with me. Praise God for you, and I pray that he will bless you for doing stuff. I do need to say though, that I will most certainly need some prayers and support throughout this blog plan that I have, because over the next few blogs, I plan on sharing a lot of personal details about the things that I am going through. The reason I am going to do that is because right now, the shadows that I have been living in with these things are giving these demons power over my life. So part of defeating these demons is to know that there is power in the light, and there is loving support in the light. So again, thank you for reading, and I hope that you will stick around and be able to support me as I grow in my faith this way.

Thank you, and my God bless you.

Sincerely,

Kenny Floyd

Welcome Back!

Thank you for joining me on this journey across the Christian music world. I am currently on the last day of my journey, and it has been the most impactful and worth while thing that I have probably ever done. I truly hope and pray that anyone reading this blog would consider taking the same journey that I just did. If you are wanting to know more about the journey because this was your first day, then I suggest that you go back and read my very first blog post. And if you want to read more about how this journey of listening to only Christian music for 30 days has changed my life, keep reading this blog. Again, thank you for the support, and let’s dive in to the last blog of my 30 day challenge.

As I have mentioned before, this journey has been life changing for me. When I first started the journey, I was very hesitant as to whether or not I would even want to do it. My girlfriend was very insistent though that I take this journey with her, this “Blogrimmage” as she called it(?) Admittedly, I only said yes to her because I wanted her to leave me alone about trying all these new things that she finds, (She loves to try new things, and believe me, it can be tiresome for a person like me who doesn’t try anything new unless he knows he can finish it.) But through the grace of God, I discovered that not only did I truly enjoy doing this, but writing this blog actually helped me to listen to the songs that I had already been listening to in a whole new way. Suddenly, the songs that I had been singing along with for years because fresh in my eyes, and I was finally able to be impacted by the songs in the way that God had intended. Instead of just hearing a Christian song and thinking, “Wow, that was a fun little song. I liked that song.”, I know here those same songs and think “Wow, the hand of God was definitely on the artists when they made this song, because I can feel his presence in this song.” And that is something that I have never felt before.

I know that I have talked a lot about all the different songs that I have heard over this last month, and what they might mean, and how they can help the listener, but I don’t feel as though I have done a lot of talking about how these songs have impacted me. And that is exactly what I would like to do today. Before I started this journey, I honestly felt like everyday I had a dark grey cloud hanging above my head. Now it wasn’t always there, and it wasn’t like I was depressed or anything, (Not saying that being depressed is a character flaw, because it is not. It is a real issue and it needs help to treat. I was just trying to describe how I felt.) but it definitely felt like something was off. Now, I know that this cloud was caused by some of the decisions that I have made, and I hated those decisions, but I couldn’t seem to stop making them. Honestly, I felt trapped. I didn’t really have a true relationship with Christ, and I felt like I was living a lie every time I stepped into church on Sunday’s. However, ever since starting this challenge, my whole world has been flipped upside down.

Before I start talking about the effects that this challenge has had on me, I do want to say that I am not fixed. Listening to Christian music for 30 days is not going to magically fix every problem in your life, and you are not going to suddenly stop facing trials and temptations. However, what it can do is change the way that you think, and the way that you make decisions, and that is exactly what the challenge did for me. As I have outlined in this blog, there were a few big things that were standing between me and a relationship with God. And a couple of those things were not bad things in and of themselves. But in my brokenness, I took those things and skewed them out of what they were intended to be, and created idols out of them. And through the use of the songs “Idols” by Jessa Anderson and “Clear the Stage” by Jimmy Needham, I finally saw my obsession with Madden and football in general as what they were, propped up Idols that I cared more about than Jesus. Now trust me, coming to that realization was no easy thing, because I knew that meant that I had to give them up and come back to the cross. But that is not what I wanted to do! Through the use of some heartfelt prayer though, I was able to give my idols up to Jesus, and trust that he has a better plan in place for me. So I set a date for when I wanted to be done with Madden for good, and that date is April 1st. Well I am happy to announce that over that time span, since when I first recognized the problem, God has worked in my heart to the point where I don’t even WANT to play Madden anymore! And for those of you who know me, you know that is basically a minor miracle in and of itself!

The next thing that I want to talk about is how listening to only God’s word all day, can melt your heart of stone, and bring you back to having a true and real relationship with Jesus. As I mentioned before, for a large part of my life, I have felt like I had a cloud hanging over me that kept me in a daze. This cloud is what kept me from drawing close to God, and because of that cloud, I never truly felt like I had a relationship with Jesus Christ. I did all the things you were supposed to do though. I went to church every Sunday, I was a leader in FCA in college, and I even joined a small group. But nothing really helped me get out from under this cloud of regret and shame. Nothing until this challenge that is. After I gave my idols up to Jesus, I started to notice something different about my life. I now started to feel happier each day, and I started to look FORWARD to reading my Bible each morning! That was something that I had never felt before! On top of that, I remember going to church about halfway through the challenge, and hearing a message preached on the Holy Spirit, and for the first time in my life, I think I truly felt the Holy Spirit come onto me and come into my life! I don’t know what happened, but from that moment on, my whole perspective changed. I no longer felt trapped by that cloud, and everything that happened in my life seemed to reflect the glory of God. I started to think about God while looking at nature. Hold on, let me say that again for those of you who don’t know me.. I STARTED TO THINK ABOUT GOD WHILE LOOKING AT NATURE!! That is not like me! Haha I have never done that! Yet, there I was, driving home with the windows down, and marveling at all that God has made.. in Northwest Indiana! (If you have never been to NWI, then that joke totally just flew over your head) Anyways, what I am trying to say is that taking this challenge has allowed me to give up some of the things that were holding me back from a true relationship with Jesus, and through the act of giving everything I had to God, I was given a true relationship with Jesus that I don’t think that I have ever had before. So if you see me anytime in the coming weeks, and you notice something different about me, but you can’t quite put your finger on it, let me just give you a hint as to what it might be. That thing that is different in me, that’s Jesus. And he wants to be what’s different about you too. So I hope that this blog has inspired you to pursue something similar to what I have just done, or if anything, I hope that this blog has inspired you to seek a more true and lasting relationship with your heavenly Father, because he wants to seek a relationship with you. Again, thank you for reading my blogs, I hope that they have been a blessing to you, and may God bless you in everything that he has planned for you.

Welcome Back!

I would like to say thank you to everyone who has been keeping up with me while I embarked upon this journey to listen to only Christian music for 30 days. As I have said numerous times, it has been life changing, and it has 100% been worth taking the challenge. If this is your first time checking out my blog, then I suggest that you go back to my very first blog and read that so that you can find out why it is that I have chosen to take this journey, and what it was that I was expecting to get out of it. And if you are wondering as to what kind of changes that I have seen in my life during that time, then I suggest that you go read any other blog and see firsthand for yourself what changes have came upon me. Now, let’s get into our second to last blog of the challenge.

We are going to continue with the theme of highlighting songs from prominent artists in the Christian music scene that I have not covered yet, and I can’t believe that I haven’t covered this artist yet. This artist is literally the single biggest reason why I ever started liking Christian music, and that is because he was one of the first people to make Christian music “cool” for kids listening. I am of course referring to TobyMac, and before I get into the song for today, I want to share a little bit about how Toby has influenced my life. As I said, TobyMac was the first artist who I was proud to listen to, and when I was a 10 year old kid who’s parents were going through a divorce, it was Toby’s music that I actually enjoyed listening to when I was with my Dad. After my parent’s divorce, my dad would only play Christian music in his car, and for the most part, my siblings and I did not like it. But it was TobyMac’s music alone that all three of us could agree on that we like, and I think that is a testament to the ministry that Toby has been called to. For as long as he has been around, Toby has been making fun, impactful, and meaningful songs to promote the kingdom, all while using up-beat and catchy beats and music. And it is because of that formula that he has been able to make work so well that he is even bigger now than he was when I first started listening to! And he has not changed the heart of his music at all. Earlier in this blog I mentioned how I got away with playing Christian music in our school, and the reason I was able to do that was because the songs I was playing sounded like mainstream music, they just had uplifting words of God instead of the poisonous lyrics you hear from the other songs. Well a lot of the songs I was playing were Toby’s songs. And when I talked about how some of my kids were going to a Christian concert, and they were excited to tell me? That concert was a TobyMac concert. It was the coolest thing to be able to talk to my students about a guy that I first discovered when I was their age, and know that he is still making music that is going to change the lives of kids like my students, and kids like me. So for me to wait until today to highlight his music can really only be classified under the idea of “Saving the best for last”. Now, let’s get into his actual music today.

With this being such an impactful blog for me, I think that I want to do things a little differently today. Instead of taking a deep dive into one song of his, I want to instead give you a list of songs that you can listen to if you are ever needing encouragement, or if you are in a particular kind of mood. These songs will be from everyone of his albums, and I think that if you just listen to one of these songs, you are not going to be able to keep from listening to the rest of his songs. So with that being said, let’s start this list of with songs for:

Joyfulness: “Feel It” is probably the best song that I can think of for this category because the only thing that you are going to want to do is dance when you hear it. It is such a positive message, and such a fun beat, and such a catchy song, that you are not going to want to stop listening to it when you are feeling joyful! Or really anytime for that matter..

Alone: If you are ever feeling alone, or abandoned by the world, then you need to listen to “I Just Need U”. This song speaks to the biblical truth that we really only need Jesus in our lives, and when we have him, that feeling of being alone just kind of melts away. Of course, the Bible is not saying that we should become a hermit and close ourselves off from other people, in fact it says the opposite, but it is saying that the most important relationship we can have is the one with Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Hopelessness: Whenever you feel hopeless about the world that we live in, I want you to just listen to “City on our Knees.” This is a song that speaks about the power that we have to change the world, and what the next world will be like. It speaks about how we can come together, and for the city on the hill that Jesus talked about in the Bible, and be the people who live under one kind. The people who live in the city on our knees. It is a call to prayer, and a call to action, all rolled up into one.

Lacking Purpose: “Made to Love” is the song that you need to hear if you feel like you are lacking purpose. Sometimes in life it can feel like you don’t know what your purpose is here on this earth, and you don’t know what you should do. Well this song speaks directly to that problem. And a quick side note, this was the first song by Toby that I hear, and I absolutely loved it immediately.

On Fire for God: Boy do I have a song for you! If you ever get to the point where you just feel so on fire for God that you don’t know what to do, then I want you to listen to “Burn for You”. This is a sweet song that speaks to the feeling that you are feeling right now!

Struggling with your Tongue: “Speak Life” is the song you need to hear. The song speaks to the truth that we all have the power to speak life into other people’s lives, and when we do so, we are following in the way that Jesus wanted us to live. This song was actually the song that I was going to do a full spotlight on because I feel like it is that impactful of a song.

Of course, there are a bunch more songs that you should listen to, but those are the ones that I feel you should start with. And those are the ones that I think will have the biggest impact on your life if you are feeling any of those feelings. I am glad that I have gotten to share with you about one of the most influential artists in my life, and I pray that God will use this blog post to stir you into listening to some of his songs are well. Thank you for reading, and God bless you.

Welcome Back!

I am wrapping up my 30 days of listening to nothing but Christian music, and if you would like to hear about why I decided to take this 30 day challenge, or if you just want to see why you should take it too, then I suggest that you go and read the very first day from this challenge, my first blog post. And if you are wondering as to whether or not this challenge has had any effects on my life, then I suggest that you read any other blog post I have made. And spoiler alert: IT HAS! Anyways, let’s get into the blog post for today.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am going to be trying to spotlight songs for the remaining days that I have left that have had a huge impact on me, and that were made by some of the biggest names in Christian Music. There are a lot of huge names in this genre that I have not gotten to yet, so I want to try and make sure that I get the biggest ones left! So that means that I am going to spotlight a guy named Steven Curtis Chapmen today. If you have never heard of him, then I would say that you are lying, and that you have you just don’t know it was him. That is how big this guy is! He is up there with Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith as some of the biggest names in Christian music EVER, as well as being one of the first people to make Christian music super popular. Steven has had a very long and successful career in the business, and he has made hundreds of songs that have had untold impact on people’s lives. And although I don’t have time to go through them all, I do want to point out a couple. One of his biggest songs, and a song that I am sure that any father who has a daughter has heard, the song Cinderella is a must listen to for everyone. Another one of his biggest hits is called be still and know and I highly highly suggest that everyone listen to this song because you can instantly feel the power of God on that song! However, for as great as both of those songs are, they are not the song that I am spotlighting today, and that is because the song that I am going to spotlight is probably his best work ever, and it is the song that has had the biggest impact on my life of all the songs that I have heard from him. The song that I am highlighting today is called “Dive”.

Now, for those of you who have heard this song before, or who know how amazing this song is, then you understand why I chose it. But for those of you who have never heard the song before, and who have no idea why, I invite you to listen to the song as you read this blog. The song starts off with what I think is a drum line? But it only lasts for 3 seconds, and then after that, you just get hit in the face by this musical blast. Now if you have been reading all of my blogs, you will know that I LOVE when a song does that. And that is because I think that is a really fun way of GRABBING the listeners attention, and getting them to buy in to the song right away. The music in this song is a heavenly mix of drums, guitars, and a sound that I have no way of describing other than it sounds like it came straight from heaven itself. After a couple seconds, a nice soft “ooo” comes in, and I REALLY love how this compliments this song. We finally start to approach the lyrics when the guitar comes in and plays it’s hard notes. (I understand that I am not doing a good job of explaining the way it sounds, and that is because I am not trained in this. I am a P.E. teacher after all. I just know that it sounds really cool ok. Which is another reason why you should be listening to this yourself.)

Once the lyrics come in, they paint a pretty interesting metaphor for what we can expect. The lyrics go like this: “The long awaited rains have fallen hard upon the thirsty ground. And carved their way to where the wild and rushing river can be found. And like the rains, I have been carried here to where the river flows, yeah. My heart is racing and my knees are weak as I walk to the edge, I know there is no turning back once my feet have left the ledge, but in the rush, I hear of voice that’s telling me it’s time to take the leap of faith, SO HERE I GO!” From reading those lyrics, you can tell that the song is painting a picture of a mighty river that is created by the heavy rains that haven fallen upon the thirsty ground. Think something like the Mississippi River or the Colorado River that makes it’s way through the Grand Canyon. These rivers are both massive, and can be very intimidating. No one in their right mind would, or SHOULD, want to jump into the rivers. Yet that is what Steven is about to do. He is about to jump into this mighty river, and he knows full well that he is going to have ZERO control over where his life goes after he jumps in, because when you are stuck in a the riptide of a river current, you don’t have any control of where you are going. In fact, you are going to be fighting just to survive till you can get carried away to somewhere in the river where you can swim to shore. So it makes no sense why Steven would be saying that he is about to jump into the river, yet he does it anyways. Well the answer for why Steven would do such a thing comes in the main chorus.

Now, before we can get into the lyrics of the main chorus, I quickly want to switch back to talking about the music. Because the entire time that Steven is singing the first verse, you can feel the beat of the song pick up, kind of like his heart in his chest as he gets to the river. And by the time that he gets to the edge and his feet are hanging off the edge, you can hear in Steven’s voice the adrenaline that he would be feeling in this situation, and that manifests itself in how he sings that last line “SO HERE I GO” He is basically shouting that, because that is what he is saying as he is flying through the air into the river. So if he says that as he is falling into the river, then you should listen to the tempo of which he sings the main chorus as if he is being swept away by the river, because that is exactly what is happening! Anyways, now that is out of the way, let’s get back into the lyrics!

The main chorus goes like this: “I’m diving in, I’m going deep, in over my head I want to be, caught in the rush, lost in the flow, in over my head I want to go, the river’s deep, the river’s wide, the river’s water is alive so sink or swim I’m diving in!” Talk about being all in! Steven shows us in this main chorus that he had no second thoughts about diving in to the river! Not only is he all in, he wants to be overwhelmed by the river, and fully engulfed in it’s waters! He is not halfway in this thing, he is ALL the way in. Now this does beg the question, why is he so committed to diving into this river?? Is he suicidal or something? Or is the river a metaphor for something else? Well I think the answer for this is quite obvious, and it is that the river is a metaphor for something else. And that metaphor is that the river is actually the Holy Spirt of God, and Steven is saying that he wants to be all in on the Holy Spirit of God. He want’s to drown the waters of the Holy Spirit, because he knows that once he goes all in on this, he might not have control of his life anymore, but he is going to get everything that is best for him. Later in the song, Steven says this: “There is a supernatural power, in this mighty river’s flow, it can bring the dead to life, and it can fill an empty soul. And give our heart, the only thing worth living, and worth dying for.” So as you can see, this river that Steven is jumping into, it isn’t going to take his life, it’s going to GIVE him a new life, and that is the powerful message of this song! There is a mighty river flowing right in front of our own eyes, every single day of our lives! And we are all faced with the same choice that Steven was faced with. We can either jump in, and give ourselves over to the mighty powers of the river’s flow, or we can stand on edge to scared to jump. I know the feeling of this situation though, and I understand how hard it can be to take that leap and jump in! It is 100% a leap of faith, and leap of faiths are scary! That’s the whole point of the word “faith” in the term “leap of faith”! You don’t know how it is going to turn out, and you just have to trust that things are going to work out like they have been said that they would, and you are going to have to trust that everything is going to be okay. And that is scary and hard to do sometimes. But I will also tell you this, you have to take the leap of faith in order to experience the wonders of everything that God has promised you, and you have to take a leap of faith in everything else in life, because if you try and live your life by playing it safe, you are going to end up losing it. So please, step forward. Take that leap of faith, and trust that God has a plan worked out for you that will be for your good. And you CAN trust that because he has said it before! In Jeremiah 29:11, God says “For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.” So be like Steven, and take that leap of faith! Don’t be afraid because you know full well that God has your back. All you have to do, is Dive in! Thank you for reading, and God bless you.

Welcome Back!

I am currently finishing up a 30 day challenge to listen to nothing but Christian Music for 30 days. The challenge has been amazing, and life changing, and I am SO SO SO glad that I have undertaken the challenge. If you are curious as to what inspired me to take the challenge, then I suggest that you go read my very first blog. And if you are wondering as to how the challenge has changed me, then I suggest that you read any of my other blogs. Now, let’s get into today’s blog.

We did it! I told you that I would be all caught up by Wednesday, and today is Wednesday! So here you are, my ON TIME blog post for today. Now, I only have a few more blog posts to make, so I want to really make sure that the songs that I choose are the highest quality messages that I can find. So for today’s message, I am going to be spotlighting another titan of the Christian Music industry, and that is Matthew West. I do not think that I have spotlighted any of his music yet, and that was something that desperately need to change. I am proud to say that I am one of the millions of people in the world who have been positively impacted by Matthew’s music, and I would even go so far as to say that his music has helped me to become the person AND Christian that I am today. Matthew West has sooooo many hit songs that I can spotlight today, and to be honest, I could probably do this entire blog over again and dedicate it to only explaining Matthew West songs, and it would be JUST as good as what I have been doing. However, the song that I want to highlight today might be his best song, and it is the one that has had the biggest impact on my life. That song is “More” This song is probably the most impactful song of his in my life because it is the first song that I hear of his, and it is one of the first songs that made me fall in love with Christian music. On top of that, it gave me a glimpse as to how much God actually does love me at a very early and impressionable age.

The song starts off with a very unique combination of a piano, electric music (I think?), and maybe a violin as well as some drums. I don’t quite know how to explain the sounds that I am hearing, but from the very first moment I hear them, I knew that I was mesmerized by them. However, this song is more about the lyrics than it is about the music, and the lyrics start: “Take a look at the mountain, stretching a mile high, take a the ocean, far as your eye can see. And think of me, take a look at the desert, do you feel like a grain of sand? I am with you wherever, where you go is where I am. And I’m always thinking of you, take a look around you, I’m spelling it out one by one.” Now, if you have never heard this song before, and you are just reading these lyrics right now, you might be confused as to who is talking to who in this song. And I will be honest with you, I also was confused about that the first few times that I heard it! But them all of a sudden, a light bulb went off in my mind, and the entire song changed for me. I apologize if it was obvious to you what perspective the song was being sang from, but I am trying to paint the picture of how surprised and amazed I was when I was 12 years old and hearing this song for the first time. THE PERSPECTIVE OF THIS SONG IS GOD’S, AND HE IS SINGING ABOUT HOW MUCH HE LOVES YOU!!!!! This was the first time that I had ever heard ANYONE sing from God’s perspective, but I thought that it was the coolest thing in the world! And to be honest, I still think that it is pretty cool, because even after 15 years of being released, there still aren’t that many songs that take this perspective! So with that in mind, you have to hear about how much God loves you in the main chorus of this song.

The main chorus comes in loud and proud, as “God” (Obviously it’s Matthew West singing from God’s perspective, but I like to think that this song was just God speaking through Matthew to us) sings: “I love you more than the sun, and the stars that I taught how to shine, you are mine, and you shine for me too. I love you yesterday and today and tomorrow, I’ll say it again and again, I love you MORE.” Read those words again, because those are the words of your God in heaven! The God who made the son and the stars, the God who made the mountain and the ocean, the God who made every wonderful thing in this world loves you MORE than all of those amazing things that he created. He loves you more than anything else he created because you are special to him, and you are his! I once read a book called “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis, and if you haven’t read it, I highly suggest that you do. Anyways, there is a chapter in the book that talks about the reason why God loves you more than all those created things, and that reason is because of all the things in the entire universe, you are the only thing that can CHOOSE to worship God. If god wanted us to be toy soldiers that just followed his every order and blindly followed him, then he wouldn’t have given us free will. But he did give us that free will, because he wants us to CHOOSE him back, because he has chosen to love us more than any other thing that he created. There is nothing that you can do to separate yourself from that great love the God has for you, and there is nowhere you can run to escape from his great love for you! So I pray that you bask in the wonder of the lyrics of this song, knowing full well that someday when we join our Father in heaven, he will be there waiting for us, singing this song to us! Because he does love us MORE! Thank you for reading, and God bless you.

Welcome Back!

I am currently in the midst of a challenge to listen to nothing but Christian music for 30 days. I have been doing a good job of this, and I am almost done with the challenge. However, I may continue the challenge after it ends because of the positive effects that I have been seeing from it. If you are curious as to why I decided to take this challenge, then I would like to suggest that you go and read my very first blog from this series. And if you want to see if this challenge has had any impact on my life yet, then I suggest that you read any other blog that I have written. Now, Let’s get into the blog.

For today’s blog, we are going to spotlighting a song and artist that I have always loved, but that I am falling even more in love with recently. The artist’s name is Tauren Wells, and he is an artist who has been taking the Christian radio waves by storm over the course of the last few years. I believe that I have written about this guy before, which goes to show just how much I enjoy him! The song that I am going to be spotlighting today is called “When We Pray”, and I think that you will see why I find it so important to write about as we get going.

Before we get into the lyrics, I do want to say that this is a very up-tempo song, as are many of Tauren’s songs, and it is a great song to workout or run to. So if you are trying to make a Christian workout/running playlist, then this song needs to be on it! The song opens with a very catchy electronic open, and it is really easy to feel the beat in your soul. This is one of those songs that you will find your foot tapping along to when you didn’t even realize it was doing that! The lyrics open with: “People hurting, people broken, beaten down and feeling hopeless, wonder if it’s gonna always be this way. Who will speak up for the captive? Show some love and heal a past that binds the wounds we think will never go away. But what if we could be a people on our knees, as one before the king, ’cause we believe” The picture that these lyrics are painting is a picture of a world that is broken, with lots of lost people struggling to find a place in the world. There are people who are hurting and broken, there are people who are beaten down and feeling hopeless, and they are wondering if this is how it is always going to be for them. Tauren doesn’t leave this picture without a chance for resolution though, because he offers up an option for the believers in the world to take. The option that Tauren offers is for believers everywhere to get down on their knees and PRAY. That is the message of the song, and that is the message that gets further expounded upon in the main chorus.

The lyrics for the main chorus go like this: “All the world starts changing, when the church starts praying, strongholds start to break, oh when we pray. Prison walls start shaking, at the sound of praising, nothing stays the same, oh when we pray, oh, when we pray.” Tauren’s whole point is that the world changes when the church starts praying! There are countless stories in the Bible of things happening immediately, and things happening over time when people pray for them. But nothing will happen if you don’t pray. Prayer is how we communicate with God, and if we don’t pray, nothing will happen in our lives. We need to be a people who are dedicated to prayer, and that is something that starts with me! I need to become a better prayer person, and that is something that I am working on right now. I try to pray at least once a day, but it is not about the amount of times that you are praying. It is about your heart behind it, and that is what I am learning. I have always struggled with trying to figure out how to pray, because I always felt as though I was just coming to God asking for things. And that is not how it should be. So I am trying to get to a point where I am just having a conversation with God, and that has felt much more natural, and helped me grow in my faith substantially. I always loved the lyric in the song “Watching You” by Rodney Atkins that talks about how the artist’s son was watching his dad pray, and then later that night he prayed to God just like he was talking to a friend. That is how we should try to be, because there is true power in prayer, and that is the biggest point of “When We Pray”. Tauren has gone on record saying that this song is a call to the church to start praying more, because a broken world needs a praying church. He says that this song speaks to the idea that we actually have the power to change the realities that we live in through prayer! And it is something that we need to harness and exert in our lives if we are to ever see the change in the world that we so desperately need to see. It is literally impossible for the world to stay the same when the entire church starts praying, and it is literally impossible for your life to stay the same when you start heartfully, and faithfully praying. So MY prayer is that you will hear this song and become inspired to take prayer more seriously, and that you will then turn around and pray for others to have the same realization. And then maybe we all can pray to see the world become a better place, a place that looks a little bit more like what Jesus envisioned for it. Thank you for reading, and God bless you.

Welcome Back!

I am almost done with a journey that has changed my life, and hopefully forever, and I am glad that you have come along for the ride. This journey that I am talking about is the journey to listen to nothing by Christian music for 30 days, and if you want to know about what inspired me to do this journey, then I suggest that you go read my very first blog. If you want to read more about how this journey has changed my life forever, then I suggest that you read any of my other blogs. Now, let’s get into today’s blog.

For today’s song, I would like to shine the spotlight on a guy who hasn’t been blessed with a lot of hit songs, although he definitely should have been, but who has been blessed with the opportunity to make songs that really hit deep. This guy that I am talking about is Jimmy Needham, and if you don’t know who he is, then you need to look him up right now. He is one of the best definitions of guys who have a heart for Jesus. Now, I don’t know this for certain, but I can’t help but feel as though Jimmy’s career has not been as successful as some of the other Christian artists out there because he doesn’t write songs that don’t have the word of God in them. Now don’t get me wrong, Jimmy is definitely a successful artist! But he isn’t a household name in my opinion because he hasn’t had a lot of songs played on radio stations like K-Love. Anyways, as a I mentioned, Jimmy is one of those artists that you hear and you just can’t help but say “Wow, this guy has a heart that is after the Lord” Everything that this guy writes and sings about is something that is designed to please the Lord only, and that is awesome. When I first heard about Jimmy, I was in high school, and I thought that his songs were really good. However, I didn’t quite understand how deep they were at the time, I just knew that I loved his voice and the way his songs sounded. I continued to follow Jimmy’s career into college, which is when I realized that Jimmy has stopped releasing music. I don’t know why he stopped, but whatever the reason was, I sure it was because God led him to do so. The song that I am spotlighting today is Jimmy’s most popular song, but I will be honest, I didn’t like it much when I first heard it! I thought that it was too slow, and the message behind the song went right over my head. It wasn’t until this past summer that I rediscovered the song, and truly HEARD it for the first time. And let me tell you, it changed me. This song is a very convicting song, and it is something that will not shy away from pointing out how we are supposed to be living our lives according to God’s will. The song is called “Clear the Stage”, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

The song as I mentioned before, is a very slow song, and the reason for that is because the only instrument in the whole song is a piano I believe. There may be a violin that comes in during the main chorus, but that is it. The meat of the song is not the music itself, the focus of the song is the lyrics, and boy are these some convicting and challenging lyrics. The song starts off by saying: “Clear the stage, and set the sounds and lights ablaze if that’s the measure you must take to crush the idols. Jerk the pews and all the decorations, too until the congregations few, then have revival. Tell your friends that this is where the party ends, until you’re broken for your sins you can’t be social. Then seek the Lord and wait for what he has in store, and know that great is your reward so just be hopeful.” …… Now that you have read through those lyrics, I want you to read through them again, and analyze each line, because that is what we are going to do. The first line says that we need to clear the stage and set ablaze all the lights and sounds if that is what it takes to crush our idols. If you don’t know what Jimmy is talking about, he is saying that we need to get rid of all the pompous, showy stages that so many churches have for their worship bands because many of those stages have just turned into idols of entertainment and self-promotion. Of course there are other ways to interpret that first line, but I tend to follow that line of thinking because of the next line in the verse, which talks about “jerking” the pews and decorations until the few people that are left in the congregation have revival. For those of you who don’t know what “jerking” the pews means, it means to tear up and remove. So what Jimmy is saying is that if you remove all the pretty things in a church, then the people who are left are going to be the people who actually experience true revival. It is in the third line that I think Jimmy starts talking to the individual, and it is this line that really convicted me when I first truly heard it. This is the line where he says that until you are broken for your sins, you shouldn’t be social. What Jimmy is saying is that you should be so torn up about your sins that you won’t want to do anything with anyone. And I don’t know about you, but I have rarely felt that upset about my sins, which I realized was a problem. And finally, the last line talks about how you need to seek the Lord when you get to that point, and wait for what he has in store for you, because you know that whatever he has in store for you, it is going to be for your good and his glory. Now, let’s move onto the main chorus, because it is only going to continue to get more confrontational to many people’s beliefs on religion and church as the song progresses.

The main chorus goes like this: “Cause you can, sing all you want to. You can, sing all you want to. Yes you can, sing all you want to, and still get it wrong… Cause worship is more than a song.” If you are anything like me, the worship section of each church service is probably your favorite part. So when I first truly heard that message, I was like “dang… that’s probably me.” Just because you are singing songs of praise to God, and you are in his house of worship, it does not mean that you are actually worshiping him. God has stated numerous times in the Bible how he hates when his people sings songs to him, and follow rules for him, but have their hearts nowhere near him, and this is the message behind this main chorus. This is a musical artist, singing about how worship is more than a song. If that doesn’t jump out at you, then you are missing the point here. That would be like a chef telling you not to eat his food because he knows that you are prone to eating to much of it and ruining the purpose of his creation. For a musician to speak about the Biblical truth of empty praise coming in the form of music is something that speaks to me. So when Jimmy tells you that you can sing all you want to, and still get it wrong, I think he qualifies as someone credible to believe. Jimmy, and more accurately God through Jimmy, is trying to tell us that for our songs to have meaning, our hearts have to be in the right place to worship God. God is always calling out for the people to have their hearts to be seeking him, and then he will accept their worship. God doesn’t want your empty worship, because it is insulting to his glory.

The last part of the song that I want to talk about is the bridge, and that is because it is the most convicting part of the song. The bridge goes like this: “We must not worship something that’s not even worth it. Clear the stage, make some space for the one who deserves it. Anything I put before my God, is an idol. Anything I want with all my heart, is an idol. Anything I can’t stop thinking of, is an idol. Anything that I give all my love, is an idol.” As you are reading those words, I am sure that you had something come to mind that you cherish in your life. It might not be an insidious thing, heck, it might not even be a bad thing at all! But whatever it was you thought about, I am sure you had the same thought as me “What? No, he can’t be talking about that. There is no way that ________ is an idol. It is a good thing!” Well I have some tough news.. It is. What came to mind for me when I heard the song first was football. Football is not a bad thing, and in fact, it is the way that God has chosen to use me to spread his good news! However, over time I have grown to realize that I sometimes let football take too much of my life, and it blocks out the time and attention that I could be giving to God. The best example of this was my obsession with the football video game, Madden. I spent way to much time thinking about it, and obsessing over it, and it definitely was an idol in my life. For you, it may be something different. Maybe for you, it is the new job that you have been coveting. Or maybe it is an object that you think will make your life better. Or maybe it is something else. But whatever it is, if you are putting it before God, it is an idol, and it is impeding you from having a true and meaningful relationship with God. As I have mentioned in this blog previously, I have given up playing Madden for good, and I can say with 100% confidence that since making that decision, I have noticed a substantial and significant growth in my relationship with God. So whatever you have as an idol in your life, I want to simply challenge you to removed it from your life and see the kind of impact it can have. No matter what that idol is, you need to get it out of the way, and trust that what God has in store for you next is going to be better than anything else that you could have imagined. Thank you for reading this blog, and I ask that you give a few more Jimmy Needham songs a listen because he really is a truly special artist. I recommend Forgiven and Loved, as well as Hurricane. Finally, I pray that you will give God a chance, and removed whatever idol you have in between you and him, so that you can truly receive the blessing that God has planned for you. Don’t let your praise, but empty worship. Seek the Lord with all your heart, and just see how he uses you. Thank you, and may God bless you.