I remember the days when I would be completely satisfied with a fun jam session.
Those days are gone.

I remember the days when I would be perfectly content with writing a song that’s been stuck in my heart for days and days.
Those days are gone.

I remember the days when joining the band felt like completion.
Those days are gone.

I remember the days when playing shows made me feel incredibly awesome about myself.
Those days are gone…

It is a wonderful and terrible day when what you desire is so big, it is completely beyond you.

Lately I’ve been getting the question: ”Michael, what are you doing with that voice?”  What a great and terrible question.  If there’s one question that can bring me into simultaneous anger and confusion, this is the one.  This is the battleground for my soul: where I am tempted to lay down my God-given and God-formed imagination in exchange for what is shiny and immediately pleasing…

…I mean, why don’t I just drop everything and go on one of those shows where the promise of fame and money and celebrity is thick?  Why don’t I just find a band that’s “trying to make it now” and give the juggernaut music business a shot?  Why don’t I just tour the open mic’s in the Bay and look to get my name out there?  Wouldn’t anything less be a waste of the talent that God has given you?

The above things aren’t bad, let me be clear.  But let me be clear about something else: the past 6 months of my life as a musician have been absolutely insane.  I am experiencing external circumstances and internal passion and vision like I’ve never seen or known, in the midst of multiple personal life transitions in which it doesn’t make sense for any of this to be happening.  Something unprecedented is happening, and I don’t intend to get in the way.

And where do I want this to go?
What do I want out of this?
Of what stuff does this forming imagination consist?
Well… 

I want humans to know they are human.
I want humans to admit they are human.
I want humans to submit to being made more human.

I want to see the destructively reconciling peace that Jesus is and that Jesus made when he submitted himself to execution and overcame death and betrayal and loneliness.

I want for supernatural power to bring wholeness to bodies, families, and cities.

And, I want to be a part of it all.  Right there.  In the middle of it.  I want to help out, like a 5 year-old wants to “help” his dad do something that his dad could very well do all by himself, and feels special because his dad let him be a part of something important and beyond him.

This is now what it means for me to be an artist.  This is the only way I can see myself doing exactly what I’m supposed to do, no more and no less.  This is the only way I can stay loyal to Jesus in this vocation. And I know that some days will be better than others.  But when I wake up, I will receive the renewed mercies of YHWH and let them activate and resuscitate me.  The game has changed.  And it has to be this way, all the way, full out.  

He (not anyone else) put a new song in my mouth,
A song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
And put their trust in YHWH. 

Can you now see how this just got dangerous?