Unexpected Answers to Prayers

Working on my upcoming album, Welcome to da Faith, and I was brought to my knees in humility, realization, shame, and sorrow. I trust that it’s the sorrow leading to repentance (2 Corinthians 7:9-10). Here’s the lyrics that did it to me:

. . . God I need truth

Plow up my heart so I can grow closer to You

It’s my urgent request—nothing is new

Except I see my hardness of heart as sin against You

No life can come out of rocks or stones

And God, You alone can cause me to groan

And weep every time I sin against You—You alone

If I’m gonna grow I need my heart totally blown apart

I wrote this song, ultimately about growing close to God and bearing fruit for Him and leaving a godly legacy in the beginning of 2013. In fact, all the songs on the upcoming album are snapshots into various parts of the last 5 years of my life: explanations for each will follow after the album drops on April 16^th, 2017.

And while proofreading my lyrics and making sure the tracks are record-ready, the final line of the lyrics quoted above smacked me in the face. “If I’m gonna grow I need my heart totally blown apart.” I wrote that before moving to Missouri, and perhaps it’s why God wanted me here for the past three and a half years. In all honesty, it’s been one heartbreak after another. I’ve been forced to say, “All I have is Christ. Hallelujah, all I have is Christ,” but unfortunately, I’ve done way too much complaining to God during this time.

“God, when are You going to bring her to me?”

“God, why does no one love me?”

“God, why don’t You care?”

“God, I’m a cry-baby, and I don’t care.”

“God, because of all this junk I can justify x, y, and z.”

And here’s what kills me. I pray in the song the lyrics above come from that God would grow my faith and love for Him and fruitfulness for Him. I conclude that the best way for this to happen is for Him to totally blow my heart apart. By last fall it was about as splintered apart as it could possibly get, but instead of saying, “Thank You, Lord, for answering my prayer to grow me in my Christian walk,” I complained and used the excuses quoted above.

So this brings all new meaning to the lyrics to another song on my album, penned just before coming to the realization that this post is about.

The last seven years—where should I start

Many mends to be made to holes in my heart

Some methods God has used have taken me off guard

But faith don’t grow stronger if resistance ain’t hard

Some of the heartbreak I’ve experience has been directly related to potential girlfriends/actual girlfriends. Other of the heartbreaks has been caused by churches failing to live up to their biblical calling: to preach the gospel to believer and unbeliever and point people to Christ, calling them all to repentance. When it comes to answered prayers, while I’ve failed to praise God rightly through His loving work of taking away (Job 1:21), He has definitely helped to clarify that I am called to the ministry and clearly shown me how to do it rightly through the examples (the past three years specifically) of how not to do it.

Love God. Love others. Just like it’s not enough to just say, “I love God,” it’s also not enough to just tell other Christians, “I love you.” It’s gotta be shown. God has convinced me over the last six years of the truth of both sides of the “prove your love equation,” and He has done a lot of it through the supremely tough times I’ve dealt with the past three years. Praise God that He’s forgiven me for missing the point for so long. But it is now time to allow Him to continue to work in my life, and not allow the potentially great times coming soon to cause me to forget the lessons learned in the hard times.

Soli Deo Gloria.