Let me try to take a load off of your mind. Guys, your whole life adults try to tell you that you need a normal 9-5 job, so you can support your normal family all so you can make it to your normal home in time to sit on your Lazy Boy for the rest of the night watching sports. Or ladies, you had your mothers tell you all your life you needed to know how to cook, and clean, be a homemaker, and be a loving, submissive wife in order to please God.
Listen to me… Put all of that aside for a moment.
All my life people have said stuff like, “so what college are you wanting to go to? You look like you would be good at business!” Well... I don’t want to do that. I might be good at it, but I would go mentally insane if I had to put a suit on everyday and got to an average job and talk about marketing statistics all day. Gross.
This is where I began to think, “Dang. Life is going to suck because my whole existence people have told me to man up because one day I would have a job I would hate. And I would have to deal with it.” Sometimes I wonder if they are just telling me that because they feel hopeless seeing as how that is what they did. I never wanted to get an average job. I didn’t want to be in the norm. I have a theory that we only take the 9-5 job because we are pressured by past generations because it is the most financially stable.
When I was about 10 years old, my mother forced me into taking guitar lessons. That small flame sparked into an obsession. An obsession that hasn’t and I believe will never leave me. From then on I played my guitar for hours upon end every single day for years, and years, and years. At one point I literally became the best guitar player I knew. I am not trying to sound overconfident, but at a certain point, there was nobody I knew that could play (in my opinion) as fast, or as well as I could. (In my circle of friends)
But during that time, something happened. But it didn’t take hold until years later.
At 13, I heard rap. It was Beautiful Feet by Lecrae. Before, every influential figure in my life had told me they were a bunch of gangsters who were pretending to be Christians. Ironically it was their lyrics that grabbed me. It pulled me in to a whole new universe of honesty, real life, and art. It fit me perfectly. I didn’t care that I was a homeschooled, white kid. It was the music by itself that I loved.
After that I got sucked into school, being told you MUST do well, so you can get into a GREAT college, so you can provide steadily for your family. That didn’t work for me. I had found this magic in a bottle from hip-hop and writing poetry. The words consumed me. The whole idea of rhyming words and how that emphasized their meaning to further coordinate its message to the listener. It fascinated me. It became this dream that I was told I couldn’t do because it wasn’t realistic. It was something I believe God placed on my heart to chase, but was getting drowned out by the opinions of other people.
I still haven’t fully dedicated myself to music and writing. But I plan to. My biggest fear is to end up being a cheesy, terrible artist. If it takes me years to make music, so be it. I rather put out quality work over time, than rush into making horrible music. Then again, I might end up being a writer and a speaker. All in all, I just want to help people with my words.
My whole point in telling you this is so you can find that 'magic in the bottle' in your life to chase after as well. Forget what everyone else says. Chase what you are passionate about. What drives you to create, and what makes you unique.
You don’t have to follow the norm. You don’t have to be who you don’t want to. You don’t have to settle for anything. God didn’t settle when He made you. So why would He have you settle for something He didn’t instill in you to be passionate about? Don’t waste your life trying to please others. Use your talents for the glory of God, and take a risk.
Our purpose is not to try to create a perfect life in an imperfect world.
Our purpose, now, is to spread the hope of Jesus in any way possible.
It is to glorify Him in whatever we do. How can we glorify Him in a job we are working to get away from?
The good news is God calls us to use the tools He gave each of us.
Don’t turn into a generation of people who settled for mediocre and kept their real dreams in the back of their mind categorized as impossible. Nothing is impossible with God.
Chase what matters, using what matters.
Find Freedom.
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