More or Less

I search for meaning in the midst of notes and lyrics. Personal meaning...some kind of connection, some kind of knowing, some kind of message that someone understands and that it's all going to be okay. In the midst of a great song...I know myself better, maybe I know God better, maybe I know someone else a little bit more. I know I'm not alone in this. So, as a writer, this leaves me feeling a great responsibility to also write my own material from a place of truth and depth. What can be better than to create a connection that will carry far beyond myself? What can be better than helping others to know something they didn't know before, or at least place their finger on something they couldn't quite find the words to.

But, if there is anything I have learned from living in Nashville for the past year, in relation to following "the dream", it is this: I don't want to perform in order to make a name for myself. I have no desire to allow the songs to dictate to me where I should show up on any given night in order to play so that I can be known...so that I can share more songs...so that I can gain some kind of meaning and significance of a life that looks way more spectacular than being a real live, down-to-earth person. I just want to play. I want it to be real. I want it to be an overflow of a heart that is truly alive and truly in relationship with the master Creator and songwriter.

I don't think I'm there yet. And the songs have grown quiet. Not because I want them to, but because I am not sure if they mean something. Are there new songs to sing? Is there a reason I have been given this gift, other than the reasons I have already seen? Where is the line between building my own kingdom and building for the God that I love so much? I don't want to live for myself...it seems so empty.

I am so thankful for the gift of song. I love the journey of words and the way it begins to blend with the melody. I love hearing a completed effort and feeling the joy of knowing that something beautiful came across the strings of my guitar...feeling that it had very little to do with me and very much to do with Him.

I love sharing this gift. I love singing a song for someone at just the right moment. I love sitting with a group of people and pouring out a lesson I have learned, guitar in hand, heart wide open. Some of the most beautiful moments have come in the quietest of places, with the most unlikely audiences, and with words and notes written long before the present, but just exactly for the moment that I find myself in.

When I began to play, way back in the day (haha), it was in times of complete wonder, complete acceptance, complete humility, complete reliance. I learned how to play by worshiping God. He is the reason I sing. He is the reason I pour out my heart in song. I don't ever want to forget this. I don't ever want to take it for granted. If I only played behind closed doors in my room for the rest of my life, it would be ok...as long as I knew that it was authentic and real. As long as I knew I wasn't selling out...wasn't trying to meet the expectations of people and places and myself for wanting to be known.

Just a lot of thoughts tonight. I'm on a journey...of song...and I have no idea what that means. Sometimes I am chasing it...sometimes I feel that it chases me. I am 30...I have written more than 20 songs at this point both finished and not...and I don't know what to do with them. I don't know where to take them. I have them, in my hands...along with papers that need to be graded, and relationships that need to be mended, and places I would very much like to go. And I am wondering...how it will all work out. Because I don't want to waste what I've been given...I don't want to come to the end and see that I could have done more or that I should have done less.

I will end with this quote that I read tonight in Beth Moore's study on the book of Daniel:

"The need for identity and a sense of significance is as human as our DNA. We begin this search in pursuit of ourselves only to arrive sorely disappointed. Cavernously empty. The honest sojourner cannot stop there no matter how high he's climbed or what position he's attained. If he does, he will forfeit his soul. In search of truth, he is driven beyond himself until all he finds is God. And in bowing down, he is lifted up...

Only in the reflecting pool of a poured-out life can a man finally see who he is."

And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed? ~Luke 9:25