Discouragement

    It's so easy to be discouraged. It always starts with something very small that starts in your head and then grows as it moves to your heart. A lot of time we don't notice as it grows until it's too late and we are sitting there feeling beat down and have lost all of our inspiration and motivation. They say that the mind is the most powerful weapon of them all. I would have to agree.

    I just finished working on my first solo album. Really it's been something that I have been working on a long time. I had always thought about doing it but then I would start to get discouraged and end up giving up. Well I was just listening to it and thinking about the things I needed to do in the editing process and the next thing I know all I can think about it how it's not good enough. How that I didn't record it right or that I don't sound good enough. Then I start to think about how everyone else sounds better than me and such and such. It's one of those moments where I have two choices. I can either let those thoughts keep going or stop them where they are.

    See the thing is that I have to believe in what and who I am. I have to tell myself. "You know what I did the best with what I could and I believe in the dream that God has given me". A lot of times we look at the world and the things that we wanted to accomplish in it and start blaming things for us not achieving them. We say "Well if I was born in a big city", or "If someone would of given me a chance". But the truth is that we allow ourselves to get discouraged and then we stop our selves. The biggest threat that we have to our dreams is our own mind and discouragement.

    So I just wanted to encourage everyone as well as myself to recognize those thoughts of discouragement and stop them in their tracks. We all have dreams and we all have gifts that God has given us. We have to believe that we have those dreams and gifts for a reason. There is something that you were meant to be great at in this life. There are things that only you can do. So don't let something like discouragement drag you down. You have to believe in yourself and believe in God. That and just keep walking forward. The more you ignore those thoughts and keep moving down the path to your dream the quieter those thoughts are going to be until you actually reach where you are going and they are gone forever.

Only Time Will Tell

    I have always known what I wanted to do. I have always known that I wanted to inspire and influence people to be able to have type of life that would make them feel more complete. There has been different ways that I thought I would accomplish this from preaching to doing hip hop music. I always knew that I would do something that would have an impact on our culture. I thought I knew how that was going to happen and I thought that I knew the people that would be involved with it. Lately it's seemed that the more that I thought I knew it really turns out that I knew nothing. I don't know what is going to happen right now. The fire is still there and I am still striving to make a contribution to this world. I am just not sure what the grand scheme is looking like.

    To be honest it's kind of a scary but at same time very freeing place to be. I have an album that is almost done but have no idea how I am going to pay for it or how to put it out. I have a book that I have written that is done but I have no idea how to publish it. I have so many things inside of me that I know people need to hear but I have no idea how to share them. I am a very driven person. At times I am probably too driven and I lose my sense of balance in the process. Right now I am not able to get things out of line. I have to wait and pray for the opportunities to show up to move forward in these dreams. I am learning that I can't just make it happen on my own or to expect anyone else to make it happen for it. It's only going to happen when the time is right and everything is in order. I am being forced to just wait on God and wait on other events to happen. It is a good thing though because it gives me time to work on my family and work on myself to make sure that everything is in order before things go nuts.

    I still believe that I will someday achieve my goals. Everything else that is associated with it though I have no idea how it is going to happen or when. All I can do is keep working on myself and my art. That way when the time happens I will be ready to hit the ground running. If anything that I have learned in this process is to not get discouraged. We might think we have everything under control and that we know how things are going to work out but the truth is we have no idea. There are always things that are outside of our control. Instead of getting frustrated or feeling hurt about it the best thing to do is keep our eyes looking upward and our feet moving forward. Eventually all will happen as it will. We just have to be prepared to walk through the door when it's open.

What If

I was having lunch a couple of weeks ago with a man that I respect deeply and he said something things that really challenged me. We were talking about God and how I always felt like I just couldn't do the things that He wants me to do and always fell short. I was feeling like that was why I felt I could never get to the point in my relationship with God that I have wanted to be. He told me "What if God in your whole life only asks you to do one thing? What if your life is about one time that God wants you to share with someone and the whole rest of it is just about loving Him and loving your life?" That was something that completely kind of caught me off guard but was such a freeing experience at the same time.

When I first started going to church I was told all these things. I was told that I had to get into ministry and that I had to be a witness to as many people as I could and bring them into the Kingdom of God. I got that stuck in my mind and it became about all of that and non about just loving God and living with Him. I am not saying that was what the people of the church were about because I know them well enough to know that wasn't their heart. But it still was put in me that I had to always be doing something for God. So when I was told that maybe it was just about living life it kind of messed with my mind a little bit. But really it makes total sense.

I really feel like God is more concerned with what I am doing with Him rather than what I am doing for Him. Living with God is about a relationship and we are told that all the time that Christianity is a relationship. But as far as how to grow that relationship we are just told to read our Bibles and to pray. Here is my problem with that. It doesn't help just to say that. We are in a time in our world where we don't know how to have relationships any more. All we see about relationships is reality TV and if you have ever watched one of those I am sure you will agree that isn't a great example. We need to learn more how to just live with God. How to communicate with Him in our everyday lives not just when we are trying to have and organized "quite time". It's about living a life with him and then letting him take care of the rest.

I have kind of come to a realization that none of this performance God stuff is for me. I don't care if all God has planned for my life is a 5 min conversation with a person, my CD to distributed all over the world or just to lead a small group of people. All of that is out of my hands and to be honest I have enough stress in my life besides wondering if I am living up to all the expectations of God. Truth is his explanations were pretty much laid out by Jesus in Mathew 22

³⁶"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" ³⁷Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'^[b]
38This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'^[c]

Honestly if we are doing those two things then I really believe that everything else will take care of itself. For now all I can focus on are those two things and everything else will happen as it happens.

Humbleness and Forgiveness

    I have been going through some things lately and I think I am learning some very important lessons. We all know that when we are going through things that hurt we hate it at the time but there is always an opportunity to learn and grow from it. I always hate it when people tell me that at the time but I know that they are right. I just don't want to hear about it when I'm in the middle of it.

    I have been learning a lot about friendship. I think that the three greatest tools needed to be a great friend are Love, Humbleness, and Forgiveness. They all go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. You don't truly love someone if you consider yourself better than them or if you can't forgive a wrong that they did to you. Also it's impossible to really be humble to people if you don't love them. It all is this circle and if one of the parts get's messed up then it can affect the whole.

    I think that it's really important for us to look at the people that we are closest to. Look at the relationships that we are currently in and honestly take the state of those relationships. It kind of looks like this for me. I look at the people that I am closest to. How am I interacting with them? Am I letting little things eat away at me and allowing myself to build up resentment towards them? If I truly love them then how can I resent them? I am not saying that we are going to agree with everything that they say or do but we should never carry stuff against those closest to us. We can confront them and let them know that whatever it was pissed us off but then we need to let things go. If you are not willing to forgive someone for something that they did to us wither it was intentional or unintentional then really are not being a true friend to them. We are basically telling them that we are better than they are and we don't need to forgive them. If no one in the world forgave each other for the stupid stuff that we all do then the world would be a very lonely place.

    That whole thing carries over into being humble. I cannot have an attitude with my friends that I am better than them in any way. When you are in a relationship with someone you make a pact with them to be equals. I will give you parts of me and in return you will also give me parts of you. But when you start to consider that the parts you gave them are more important than the parts they gave you that puts you on uneven footing. Then you start to get this sense of entitlement that basically you deserve this and that from those people. That is no way that you can love someone like that. It's like you almost love them because you feel like you have to take care of them. Bad thing is that with that kind of attitude pretty soon the only person we will have left to take care of will be ourselves because no one will want to be around us. It's also hard to forgive someone when you think of yourself as better than them. They should be the people begging you for forgiveness; you shouldn't have to offer it to them. I know that I have been guilty of that in the past and honestly it makes me very disappointed in myself to think about it now.

    The hardest part about the whole thing though is that these things usually are in your face kinds of things. They usually brew under the surface for awhile and you don't see them coming out until it's too late. It's not like you just freak out one day and alienate all your friends. It's something that happens slowly over time and it just eats away at a great relationship. That is why I have kind of made a promise to myself to try and take an account of the status of my relationships more often. That and really start to check myself and see where my head is at. If you don't notice it and aren't looking for it then it will come up behind you and mess up things that are truly meant to be a blessing in your life.

    I guess the main thing I want to say is take a look at those that are closest to you. See if you are really honoring those relationships with Love, Humbleness, and Forgiveness. It is a contagious thing to love people and I believe that it's probably one of the most rewarding things anyone can do with their life. Especially to those who love you back and are willing to give as much as they receive. Tell those around you that you love them and if there are things that you feel like you are holding on to then just let them go and love. It's rough but I think if more people did that then our relationships and our world would be a better place.

Never Hurt

I was thinking about different songs that I have written. This is a verse from a song called "Never Hurt" that is one of my favorites. It is something that just came from my heart. I hope that people can get something from it.

"Never Hurt"
1st Verse

I'm thinking about my past life/used to be the masked type
wanted all these dreams to shine bright just like a flash light
Not tryin to live the fast life/to get my cash right
But speaking heart leaking as if this was just my last night
Giving everything inside me/all that I try to be
Paint a picture bright to to see of my hearts diary
Never wanted to be a roll model/no body to follow
The pressure building up this pill to hard to swallow
Expectations getting high now/needing a time out
They tell me to fly now/I'm screamin fly how
Cause these shackles are weighing to much
Say God changes lives so I pray for a touch
Everyone else telling me I'm praying to much
Say tears heal wounds so now I'm saving them up
Maybe one day I'll make it out of this mess
Be strong enough that I'll be passing the test
But for right now hear my humble request
Confess I'm out here just doing my best
Seems liver every body's coming at me from every direction
Got me stressin confessin I'm needing some body's protection
In every pain this lesson/this pain turns to depression
Wonder if this is all I get for all the blood I've invested
I'm trying to make a difference/trying to make them listen
Lies caused a division that's got me locked within this prison
They say Jesus has risen so I'm praying for a visit
They say he'll only come if I take his life and live it
But I've seen so many people live for as just a gimmick
That now I dont receive him whenever these people send it
Cant help it I have a wall from these past hurts
Some scream some cry their wicked laughs hurt worse
Cause their taking joy out of my pain
So I'm praying God wont let them hurt me the same.

Basically this is just about trying to do the right thing even when it seems that everything is against me. It's from a time where I really did feel that the people that were supposed to support me didn't. The rest of the song goes on to explain that no matter what is going on I am going to keep going, and keep trying.

Intro

So I decided to start a blog. Really I don't know why other than I had some time on my hands and I am always thinking about things. I figured that maybe some people would be interested in what I am thinking. If not then at least maybe someone will listen to what I think. If you are reading this then you probably already know about me so there's really not a reason to go into the whole thing. The only thing really to explain is the title. The reason I titled it Lifes Lyrics really is because it's a name of an album that I am thinking about making. If you know me then you know that music is pretty much what most of my life is about. I love music and it it drives a lot of what makes me as a man. So I figured it was a good title. I don't know. I guess it could make no sense. It is what it is though. So I guess I am just going to continue to write about whatever comes to my mind and we'll see how this thing works out.