My Blog For You

In hindsight, I probably should have learned how to play other instruments when I was young, but I didn’t.  I wish I had but alas I did not.  Slowly but surely, I learned chords by ear with no teacher, no classes, just me plunking it out.  You see in the NEW world of digital recording with computers you can play a part one time and then go back and tweak it to be in perfect time, pitch, and tempo with my new best friend, “The click track.”  This was just what it sounds like.  The electronic metronome, the click, timed out whatever session I was working on, whatever tempo I established and made it all come together.  I did start to use online YouTube videos on how to operate the new gear I had purchased.  Those videos and training were very helpful.  I got better and better at it and faster and faster using it.  I started overdubbing my voice, other instruments and of course bass guitar was always last.  Thru these new tools I started to write what I knew best…worship songs.  Many of these first songs I wrote were my way of continuing to grieve Cheryl’s loss.  They were songs directed to Father God.  Thru the tears and sometimes laughter at my terrible piano playing ability I learned how to live without my girl, my friend, my Cookie.  Just about everything else in my world, eating, breathing, working, mentoring, and teaching worship leaders at the church along with playing bass from time to time or running sound for services was what it was…before her passing.  I thought I had a firm grip on my heart, my emotions, my life going forward, and I thought I knew where the Lord was taking me but in hindsight and looking back, I was only at the beginning of that valley.  Recently the church I go to now has been reading thru the entire Bible, starting in Genesis, reading the entire Bible in one year.  Reading each day, I guess I never knew how many times the Children of Israel went their own way from the Lord for other gods, other things, other distractions away from the living and true God.  I was headed right toward that exact thing.  In retrospect, it was like I was standing on the railroad tracks, not hearing, not seeing, and not feeling the roar of an oncoming train coming my way.  I just did not know it and again I did not hear and obey the Lord.  I was blind to it, I got really dumb by it.  Honestly, I listened to the still small voice of God telling me to stand down from it.  The Lord each time He spoke, was always very clear and specific.  He never speaks with double-speak or with cute clues, or weird sayings, or by any clever means to convince me.  That would be the enemy of my soul’s method.  I really did not want any part of “following the Lord’s voice” at that time.  Looking back, I was in rebellion against the Lord.  I was too banged up inside to have any desire to follow that still small voice.  I made, in retrospect some very unwise decisions as a result of the loss of my best friend and wife Cheryl.  I listened to the voice of my flesh…as I was still grieving her loss.  I was very damaged and hurt by her loss but still, did not truly know it.  In some ways, I was blaming her death on the Lord.  I take full responsibility for my actions.  I always have, and I always will.  I walked it, I lived it and I paid the price for it.   What came next was a kind of black hole that I was walking toward but did not know it.  Isn’t it ironic, that the wrong or bad times or the right or good times we experience and live through as men and women of faith reveal themselves?  Just like a mirror or like pristine crystal-clear glass.  After all, when we really look in the mirror, we can then see all the imperfections, all the warts, all the failings, faults, and scars.  When I look back now, only then, when I am honest, truthful, and transparent, like I am trying to be in this manuscript can I see the real disobedience, the real struggles, the real pain, and my real grief.  My decisions, my heart, and the truth, like these I am going to tell you in the next few pages about, were in the big picture for me, never God’s ultimate will.  God does not set us up to fail.  No.  God never wants us to sin, so he can then show his mercy. Never.  It is because of our flesh that we go down the path to destruction.  Just like Jesus, who reaches down for us like he did for Peter, reaching down, pulling him from under the water of the storm to the surface to be shown mercy and grace.   He worked these mis-guided decisions for his purposes.  You know the scripture in Romans 8.  From the Amplified Version Romans 8:28 reads, And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose..All things…not some things, not a few things, but ALL things work together for our good.  Those decisions I made back then, were not His will but my selfish will alone.  Remember He sees everything, knows everything, is all powerful and knows the beginning from the end.  You are probably wondering if I secretly killed or committed some terrible act…right?  It was nothing like that, but it did harm some people, did hurt others who were looking up to me.  It was wrong. 

More Next Week