May 31, 2024
In high school, I was a guitarist in a band called the Electric Wiesels. We had one gig at a school assembly and it was glorious. Though my guitar string broke half way through the set, I played on. We had three guitarists after all, so we were fine.
Of course, since my introduction to Nirvana by Mrs. Bantam in Grade 8, I had dreamed of being a rock star. I learned as much as I could on the guitar, such as the classics of rock–Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, dabbling in Metallica. My parents also put me in classical lessons, where I learned to play songs by Beethoven. I also enrolled me in a jazz band in high school. Despite my poor academic performance in school, I was definitely studious when it came to music. Unfortunately, I was never really a singer.
I never used my voice as an instrument, until I met Jesus. I now had something to sing about. I began to write songs that expressed my newfound faith, and formed a new band with some friends that we called Cornerstone. We began to sing at different churches and venues. We had all experienced spiritual renewal in the Gospel and wanted to share this new love with the world.
This musical writing continues even today. I have now written an album called Hymns of New Wine to express how Jesus is breaking through the ground of my heart and mind. I don't view myself as a "Christian artist," but as a person, who seeks give creative expression to his convictions, worldview, and values, as all other artists do as well. Jesus, the true image of God, is the foundation of our creative work.
Like the Samaritan woman, we simply shared what God had done for us in Jesus: “...so the woman left her jar and went away into town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Messiah?’ They went out of the town and were coming to him” (John 4:29-30). We had something to sing about.
Walking on Water
I was baptized a few months after my initial encounters with God. I publicly shared my story and gave witness to my new gift of renewal. God had forgiven my sin and given me new life in Christ. My grandmother shared with me a classic verse from the book of Proverbs: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; lean not on your understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:16).
I sought to do this, by meditating daily on the scriptures, and listening for the Word of God in my life. I believed that the Spirit of God would direct my path. For instance, one evening, on the encouragement of a pastor, I tried something called listening prayer, an interactive dialogue with God. I was surprised in the silence. I was sitting in my bedroom and suddenly I had this strange awareness that I was not alone; there was a presence in my room. It was not a threatening presence or an evil one, this presence intended good, not harm.
I was terrified, nonetheless, because I recognised that I was in the presence of the Holy God. My natural response was to lie on the floor with my face down. Then these very simple words entered my mind, “My Spirit rests on you; follow me.” I still hear those words in my head, more than two decades later. It was a sense that God was with me and had a purpose for my life. I only needed to trust his Spirit and follow Jesus.
During this time, a missionary couple with Multiply, a mission agency I now work with, came and shared about their work in Colombia, making disciples of peace and listening to the prophetic leading of the Holy Spirit. They shared a dream they had of standing on a dock, with Jesus on the water, calling them to walk forward on the waves. God was inviting them to live the seemingly impossible, in surrender to him.
Their story and mission impacted me and caught my imagination. With my newfound passion and fire for God, where was God calling me? I continued to read the book of Proverbs. I was stopped in my tracks by chapter sixteen, where I read, “To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue” (16:2) and “In their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps” (16: 9).
I wanted to give my life to the mission, to help others come to know Jesus and the hope of the new creation.
In my heart, I resolved that this was the path that God was calling me to follow. The path to “mission,” at least cross-culturally, took a much longer time than I anticipated, and led me to places that I had not anticipated, but that is another story. At this point, all I knew was that my path was to follow Jesus, wherever he led me.
Searching for Language
How does one articulate the mystery of God? How does one give expression to the work of the Spirit in our lives? Touched by the divine, we become lost for words.
Christian mystics sought to find poetic language for such experience. Of course, the best we have is Scripture itself. I attended a Bible school to learn the language of faith as revealed in the Bible; that is, to learn the God-given language that helps us to understand our encounters, experiences, and have faith in the living God through what he has revealed to the prophets, the Jewish scholars, and the apostles.
The scriptures themselves would not exist if people had not first had an authentic and genuine encounter with God. Would the Bible exist if Abraham did not receive his call to move to an unknown land? Would the scriptures exist if Moses did not first see that burning bush? Above all, would the scriptures exist if Jesus were not raised for the dead, if Paul had not encountered him on the road to Damascus? These texts that we have are testimonies and descriptions of God’s self-disclosure, his will for humanity and for the creation.
I left home in search of the language of God to better understand and appreciate the momentous encounter I had experienced with him. Not only the Scripture itself, but the traditions of church fathers, of theologians, of poets, artists, and writers, all seeking to express the great inexpressible mystery of our faith.
My journey has not ended.
I am still in search of this language, and now also seek to express it in a language of my own. I seek to break the ground for the sowing of the seed that will bring new life: to give witness to the reality of God, revealed in Jesus. It is only through Jesus Christ that this broken and violent world will be healed and restored. Will you join with us and take up the cross, and follow Jesus?
Go to the series: A Transfiguration in Time
Go to the series: Hymns of New Wine