A friend challenged me to share my top ten albums of all time on Facebook. It was kind of fun to reminisce but ten was a tough pick, because there are literally hundreds of albums that could have made the cut, both from my younger years with all that great classic rock that I loved so much, and all those Christian artists I’ve really come to enjoy. For a guy with no real musical skill, I sure do love music. The thing was, each of the albums had a story, a way that the artist touched my life through their music.
Sometimes as I was thinking about it, I let my mind wander. What would it be like to meet some of those artists? Would I like them? Would they like me? Would I end up being a goofball fanboy stammering and unable to put the words together, or could I see myself as a fellow artist and have the kind of talk I’d really want to have. Of course this led to another thought…
You see, there was a time in my life when I went to a lot of rock concerts. Would you believe 70 to 80 in a five year period. This was back in the classic rock period, and do you know how many of those musicians I actually got to meet? Zero—not a one! But then something happened. I met Jesus. No this is not going to one of those hokey Christian posts where I talk about how Jesus is greater than all the celebrities in the world. I know that is true, but it would be so predictable. No, instead I want to say I gave my life to Jesus and when we do that it means our whole lives. When I became a Christian, I had a lot of things to work through, and I had to separate myself from some of the things from the prior years. (I was also trying to get sober at the time.) One of those thing was my rock and roll habit. You see some of the lyrical content was just not what I needed to be ingesting in that period. Fortunately I discovered the world of Christian rock which helped me to adjust.
As I progressed in my faith, I felt the call to ministry and began to work with youth, God did something pretty cool. My students were really into rock music too and before long I was taking kids to rock concerts (albeit Christian rock concerts) and people actually respected me for doing it. Then I discovered a youth ministry resource called Interlinc that used the themes for Christian rock songs as the jumping off point for Bible lessons. I submitted and became one of their writers. Now all of the sudden I was meeting all these amazing musicians and I began to realize that God was blessing me once again.
Fast forward a few years and I’m about to get to meet another of my creative heroes, a comedian named Brad Stine. I saw him years ago at a huge event (and several times since) and became a big fan. Now, in a few weeks, my church will be hosting him as he brings his “The God Experience” tour to my town. I am so looking forward to this. Why do I share this? Because there is nothing God can’t do, and nothing from your life that He cannot use to His glory and along the way, He will often find ways to bless you in ways that no one else can. Trust Him, give Him everything and see what He will do with it.
Here’s a little clip of Brad Stine in action.
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