This article was imported from our previous website, which many have broken some of the content. We apologize in advance for any strange formatting or broken links you may find.
“He is jealous for me…"[1]
Since I was 4 years old, I’ve been passionate about playing, writing and recording music. I pursued a music degree in college, and during that time I volunteered as a musician at a local church. I had been a youth worship leader for a while but decided I’d give the adult services a try. I mean, come on, what church wouldn’t want a college music grad to play for them?
When audition day came, I was really excited to audition on both keyboard and guitar. To my surprise, the audition was really informal, and there was only a keyboard set up for the audition, no guitar amp. I was confused and suddenly realized this was a quick keyboard audition for only me. After my keyboard audition, I insisted on auditioning on guitar as well. The worship pastors were a little hesitant but humored me.
As I set up, I got this weird feeling. You know the feeling where you have food stuck in your teeth and people can’t find the right time to tell you, and they just wait it out and never say anything? It was one of those times.
I ended up having a pretty terrible audition and made excuses that I could do better. Once the audition was over, one of the worship pastors took me aside and began to talk to me. He asked how the audition went, and I gave feedback about how it was really weird and I felt a little mistreated.
He cut me off and abruptly said, “That’s because you’re arrogant."
My heart sank. I was devastated. I had no idea the way I was acting came off as arrogant. But all the excitement and the need to prove myself was a form of pride beginning to grow. It was a blind spot I had not seen, and unfortunately, didn’t address.
It wasn’t until recently that God revealed to me where my arrogance came from: my identity. I craved to be known as a great musician so much that I let that desire supersede all areas of my life, including my walk with Christ.
The story of Jesus and the rich young man is a perfect example of identity (Mark 10:17-22). As the story goes, a rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. After a quick dialogue, Jesus tells him to sell all his possessions and follow Him. The rich young man turned away very sad and left. He had lots of wealth and possessions he couldn’t give up and, therefore, chose his wealth over Jesus.
For me, it has been a struggle – a huge struggle not to let music be my identity. It’s something God gave me, used in me, blessed me with, even called me to do. So it made sense that I would live and breathe it. However, over time, it became my identity and I valued it more than Christ.
God has given us many things to enjoy, but we can let good things rule us. And the lie is the world may value wonderful things like family, work, hobbies, serving the church, money, volunteering and happiness, and we often believe we need to prove our worth by equally valuing those things.
But God is jealous for us – for our whole self. And while we can value those wonderful things. we must still put Christ first and follow Him fully.
[1] John Mark McMillan. “How He Loves.” Integrity/Columbia, 2010.