Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

What are you thinking about?
All day long, every day, there are reoccurring thoughts.   We all have them.  Hardly five minutes can go by without a nagging return to the same old refrain.  Usually, they are things that we can’t really do anything about.  Vanity issues like the way we look (height, weight, hair, clothes, teeth, complexion, etc.) or our mortality (health, exercise, diet, death, our heart, sickness, etc.), desires and obsessions (food, drink, sex, friendship, loneliness, etc.), or even basic day to day survival (career, getting work done, paying bills, money for the things we need, both now and in the years to come), it might even be guilt over something that we have done (or are doing).  I’m talking about the kind of things that nearly drive us to despair.  The thoughts that constantly get in our way, and keep us from doing what we are supposed to be doing.

It’s different for everyone, although I think most of us have a combination of a few of these things working together to keep us discouraged.  I’ll let you know one of mine, even though it is embarrassing.  I’m hoping that by sharing it, some light will be shed on the subject.  (deep sigh)

I Don’t Want to Tell You This
I was a fat kid.  I weighed 150 pounds in the 5th grade.  The kids teased me and called me “Fat Frank,” and I would chase them (I would have killed them if I could have caught them) but I couldn’t catch them.  Fortunately, between the 6th and 7th grade I grew to my adult height (5′11″) and this helped me to become a slender teen (at 170 pounds), we also moved to another town and I was able to leave “Fat Frank” behind.

I excelled at music, got up on the stage, and found my place in the world.  God had given me a gift and a vision, I ran in this direction at full speed.  I found great joy in doing what God had given me to do.

In my mid-thirties I started gaining weight again.  It happened pretty fast, and before I knew it, I didn’t recognize the person in the mirror.  I hated the person in the mirror.  I would diet, I would exercise, I would give up, I would repeat the cycle.  Some of you know what I’m talking about.  Self-loathing is not a good thing.  It gets in the way of everything.

I stopped performing music.  I would not get on a stage.  I would not step in front of a camera.  It wasn’t only vanity, it was also artistic purity, if the performance can’t look the way I want it to look, then what’s the point of doing it at all?  I would tell myself that as soon as I lost the fat I would start performing music again.  As soon as I looked like myself again I would be willing to step in front of a video camera and create some cool things.  As soon as I stopped hating myself I would start doing the work that God has for me to do.  I would resume being who God created me to be as soon as I became the person that I wanted me to be.

It’s not just performance on stage, either.  I had trouble believing that people would like me, trust me, respect me or see anything good in me because of weight.  It affected everything.

I was at my lowest point of pure self-hatred when Joel Wetzstein called me.  He offered me a position as worship leader at CrossPoint Church in Katy, TX.  He wanted me to get up on stage, play guitar, sing and lead a congregation in musical praise on Sunday mornings.  I almost said no.  I had a really hard time getting up on that stage, in front of an audience, in front of a camera.  It was humbling and in some ways added fuel to the fire of my despair, because I had to deal with it every week.  I couldn’t pretend to ignore it.

The Happy Ending
Are you waiting for the happy ending?  That moment when I had a holy epiphany and suddenly everything was glorious?  Sorry to disappoint you, but nothing has changed.  As I sit here and write this I’m looking down at the bulging buttons on my un-tucked vertical striped shirt.  I know … dude, do something about it.  I hear you.  When someone walks into my office I imagine that they are horrified to see Jabba The Hut sitting at Frank’s desk, only to remind myself that no one here knew me when I didn’t look like “The Hut,” which makes me sad (and they probably think I’m sad because of them, and wonder why I don’t like them … see how it gets in the way of everything?)  No, I don’t have a happy ending, but I do have something to think about.

Satan still whispers the same dark song into my ear every five minutes, but I try not to sing along with it anymore.  I just suck in my gut, straighten out my un-tucked shirt, and walk up on the stage and make music to glorify God.  Glorify God, not me.  I don’t have to be perfect to glorify Him.  When He looks at me He doesn’t see Jabba, He sees me through Jesus.

The Point
Whatever it is that Satan whispers in your ear every five minutes, he is doing it in order to keep you from doing what God has for you to do, please don’t let him stop you.  God has work for us to do.  He has people for us to love.  It’s really hard to love other people when we are obsessed with hating ourselves.  It’s really hard to do the things He wants us to do for other people when we are completely caught up with getting the things that we want for ourselves.  It’s hard to trust God when we spend all of our energy worrying about things we can’t change.

Matthew Chapter 6

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

May we stop worrying about the way we look, may we stop worrying about how long we will live, may we stop obsessing over the things we desire.  May we rest in the forgiveness that Jesus offers us and stop reminding ourselves of our guilt and shortcomings.  And may we instead go forward with all of our might in doing the work that God has created us to do, for His glory, and by His power.

Thanks be to God.  AMEN