Keeps my Switch on- Lyrics
Stanza 1
Lord help me love my brother
he ignores me and turns and smiles at another
his hurtful ways make me want to love some other
Lord give me grace please help me love my brother
Chorus
It's at the cross where burdens get unloaded
it's in your arms where your love gets downloaded
when life's a drag and all my strength is sapped and gone
Your resurrection power keeps me going on
Ya it's your power the keeps my switch on.
Stanza 2
Lord help my brother to love me
I am so sinful and my pride won't let me see
I have hurt him with careless actions so many
Lord give him grace please help my brother to love me
Chorus
Bridge
Life is hard, it can be simple but it's oh so hard x2
Stanza 3
Lord help me just to serve
my trials are heavy and I don't have the nerve
when I am tempted and I begin to swerve
Lord give me grace please help me just to serve
Chrorus
Words and music by: Braulio Araujo
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
This World as an Aeroplane - Lyrics
Lyrics:
Stanza 1
If you see this world as an Aeroplane, could ya see it crashing down just like rain, I
promise that we're not clinically insane, we just want to help you avoid lot's of pain
Chorus
This world is falling it's falling with no hope of restore
but there's a calling, a calling to jump out and make war
this world is falling it's falling with no hope of restore
but there's a calling, a calling to walk through heavens door
stanza 2
when you know it's falling fear of death takes suit, there's no time to panic or to grab your loot, it's falling real quickly so ya better scoot, I really do hope you have a good parachute... -> Chorus
Super sneaky stealthy surprise Bridge(4s)
Please listen to whats spoken, You can't fix this plane this wing's broken!
Please listen this is dire, Jesus saves from hellfire
God won't speak another word if you reject the gospel after you've heard.
Stanza 3
Not a good idea to pause or to stall, just listen real closely to the captain's call, his warnings not just for some but it is for all, so please take action quickly to excape the fall -> Chorus
Stanza 4
It's ok to do good to try and reform, but handing out umbrellas won't prevent the storm, surviving a plane crash is not really the norm, and when it crashes down it will get really warm
Normal Bridge(lame=P)
It's ok to try and help the situation but just know that a big smash is this plane's final destination because it's falling, it's falling.... ->continue chorus
Stanza 5
I don't even know how we can be so blind, not to want to leave this fallen world behind, it's crashing and burning ans there;s no rewind, if only we knew that there's a much better find ->Chorus
Stanza 1
If you see this world as an Aeroplane, could ya see it crashing down just like rain, I
promise that we're not clinically insane, we just want to help you avoid lot's of pain
Chorus
This world is falling it's falling with no hope of restore
but there's a calling, a calling to jump out and make war
this world is falling it's falling with no hope of restore
but there's a calling, a calling to walk through heavens door
stanza 2
when you know it's falling fear of death takes suit, there's no time to panic or to grab your loot, it's falling real quickly so ya better scoot, I really do hope you have a good parachute... -> Chorus
Super sneaky stealthy surprise Bridge(4s)
Please listen to whats spoken, You can't fix this plane this wing's broken!
Please listen this is dire, Jesus saves from hellfire
God won't speak another word if you reject the gospel after you've heard.
Stanza 3
Not a good idea to pause or to stall, just listen real closely to the captain's call, his warnings not just for some but it is for all, so please take action quickly to excape the fall -> Chorus
Stanza 4
It's ok to do good to try and reform, but handing out umbrellas won't prevent the storm, surviving a plane crash is not really the norm, and when it crashes down it will get really warm
Normal Bridge(lame=P)
It's ok to try and help the situation but just know that a big smash is this plane's final destination because it's falling, it's falling.... ->continue chorus
Stanza 5
I don't even know how we can be so blind, not to want to leave this fallen world behind, it's crashing and burning ans there;s no rewind, if only we knew that there's a much better find ->Chorus
What can I do - Lyrics
Lyrics:
Stanza 1
O Lord what can I do
when waves are crashing through
this boat's capsizing too
and hopes are so few
Pre Chorus:
What can I do? What do I do?
Chorus:
Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus I come to you, I come to you,
because you shamelessly, came and first loved me.x2
Stanza2:
O Lord I am undone
rudder and mast broken
this vessel's overrun
I look and see noone ->PreCho and Cho
Bridge:
What can I do in this storm and these waves
it's hard to see you with power that saves
What can I do in this win blowing strong
when I see you as being so wrong
and my heart is deprived of all it's song -> PreCho and Cho
Stanza 3:
Lord this my be the day
when death's toll I must pay
but in this boat I'll stay
till you take me away
I don't know why, it's hopeless but I wanna try
Stanza 4:
O Lord please catch my tears
as the wind blows I veer
this boat I cannot steer
I'm trying not to fear
I don't know how I'm supposed to see you now...
Stanza 5:
And I begin to shout
when will the sun come out
what is this all about?
and I begin to doubt -> PreCho and Cho
Bridge 2
What can I do in this broken down state?
I'm sinking down gonna drown at this rate
What can I do with all hopes out of joint
troubles and sorrows you seem to appoint
to the elect, yes to those you anoint -> PreCho and Cho
Stanza 6:
There's the sun finally!
rescue comes suddenly,
now that I'm home safely
living life happily
what do I do? what do I do?
OH Jesus! Oh Jesus!
I come to you, I come to you
because you shamelessly came and first loved me. x2
A short music testimony and a tangent
A little background about why I'm writing all these songs, this is a testimony about some stuff that I can remember related to my musical journey so far:
My whole life I've never really been musical in terms of being a musician, I got turned off by my snooty music teacher in grade 3, she made it seem like such a task and chore I got bored and turned off completely. So I went through life just listening to songs that were really popular and that everyone else considered to be "good" and that was really about it. About 5 years ago I bought a classical guitar upon hearing a nice rendition of "Greensleeves" I said "I want to play that song on the guitar" also because someone who I really respected played the electric guitar really well I decided that I wanted to do the same but not exactly the same I wanted to be a little different so I bought the classical. Anyway, I never played the darn thing, once every six months I'd pick it up and be like ugh this is too hard! I even would take it with me on vacation to Portugal hoping that I would be able to play it more since I was on vacation, haha yah right. People would ask me "can you play a song for me?" what? no get away from me lol ...
Anyways the year 2012 has been interesting, I got hit with one of the biggest and longest waves of depression I've ever had since I've had depression =( but the good news is that because of it I became more interested in music and I started picking up my guitar and actually playing it everyday until I could play(barely) some worship songs as kind of like therapy, I did this because Dan had once told me that Martin Luther who was a frequently tormented soul, found that music was one of the few things that could calm his furious soul, and it also worked for me. (David playing the harp for king Saul making the Spirit of torment leave him was also something that really made me think).
One of the biggest blocks keeping me from having a healthy relationship with God, from using my gifts and from being a witness to His grace and love(and even keeping me from being friendly) was the battle that I was having with the residues and remains of a serious addiction to pornography that I had before I was a Christian. The strongholds still existed in my mind and kept coming back to haunt me and still do till this day. Now if your not a Christian and your reading this, your probably thinking "what's the big deal? everyone looks at porn, it's the new American pass time, it's not a sin" Trust me, I work in construction and when I tell these guys that work with me that they should stop looking at porn, they look at me like "what?!!?" it never even entered their mind that someone would even ask them to do that lol (that's the world we live in now, if your shocked by this your living in a box). " "me give up porn?! something that I have free access to that gives me so much pleasure and such a big high whenever I want... no way"
These guys never weigh in the bad sides of porn though, the fact that it saps your manhood and if you indulge in it all the time it breeds a spirit of cowardice and turns you into a wimp. In your relationships you become a control-freak expecting and demanding that everyone be as responsive and pleasing as the people in the videos you are watching (conciously or sub-conciously), if you are indulging are you gonna indulge and watch a video with someone who doesn't fill your every desire perfectly? I don't think so...When you try to stop doing it and you realize that you can't stop, my friend you are slave to that thing that you can't stop, your heart needs to be changed by God. Cry out to Jesus and ask Him to change your heart and give you the grace and forgiveness that you need to have a restored relationship with God and start to share your testimony. Ask Him to continue to work in your life till the day you die, it's not a one time event, salvation is a one time event but not our need to cry out for deliverance, every time I sway towards this kind of thinking, the strongholds get a hold of me and I fall. God let's it happen so I learn that I have to remain constantly in conversation with Him and like this God can work to renew my mind and gradually remove the strongholds in the process that is called sanctification.
Anyway I can go on and on about reasons why porn is destructive(scientific studies have found that porn + masturbation releases more addiction related chemicals in the brain then cocaine does, think of the implications when it comes to withdrawal) but that doesn't matter because as a Christian, porn + masturbation is a big no-no. Anything that strays from God's original plan of man with woman is defiling the temple of the Holy Spirit of God, that temple is our bodies. I think that if we take the time to study, we will realize that anything that strays from God's original plan(He knows what He's doing, He's smarter then us) can and will bring short bursts of big pleasure but in the end brings more harm then good and leaves us feeling empty and like a loser, withered and parched, separated from God and burdened with many troubles.
So after having removed my masks and openly confessing to all that I was still stumbling and falling because of the previous addiction to porn I started testifying of how much God has helped me already in becoming free from it, before I followed Christ I used to do it everyday, now I can count on my hand the number of times in a year I give in. That's a miracle! That's so much growth I have to constantly remind myself how far I've come with God's grace or else I will beat myself up when I stumble.
I believe that this was a critical point in removing the biggest "block in the pipe" preventing the Holy Spirit from moving freely and doing His thing in my life(filling of the Spirit as opposed to the initial baptism when you get saved), whereas before He was just in there getting frustrated that I was allowing sin to dominate His temple . There's nothing that keeps Christians in bondage quite like secret sins, the devil just makes punching bags out of them as they try to deal with the sin on their own, they keep falling and confessing and then right back to fighting it again on their own hoping that no one will ever find out(what a huge burden). This is what I was doing. But nothing grieves Jesus more then people who try to receive help from Him and refuse to testify about it and proclaim in jubilant praise that He is helping them. When people know that you struggle with a sin(I'm mainly referring to strongholds like addictions and stuff like that) then it's no longer in the darkness you have brought it out into the light and it is exposed and it loses the tremendous power it has over you, strongholds are broken and chains released, now that people know you struggle, you are held accountable you can't keep doing things in secret anymore and they can pray for you and offer encouragement. It usually starts with telling one person who you really trust and this is the hardest step, and then from there it's easier to share. Start burning bridges.
Anyways back to the music stuff... another important note I remember from a long time ago is : somebody in the church saying that the Bible never says that Angels sing to God but only praise, so that we humans are the only ones that can sing to worship God. Regardless of whether this is true or not, at the time when I heard this I was fuming mad with God(yet still going to church , I don't even know why) so I said: "Oh yah you want me to sing to you eh? well I'm never singing again, ever, you're not getting anything from me >:| " I don't know whether this is funny or not but when I went on Sundays after that, when the songs came on I would just talk the lyrics of the songs in monotone just to try and give a God cheap shot, lol so immature. Me and Him were not just like a married couple, we are a married couple and we fight like it too, the only problem is He always wins in the end. Grrrr. He is working on my heart though so that I have the tendency to fight with Him less and less as time goes by, which is good because I always get a woopin'
I remember one day I was in a church in Bradford and they played some song that just made me really emotional and I asked the guy to teach me it so he gave me the paper with the chords (typical haha) Anyways as I was practicing the song I felt God was telling me to play it for my church and He was pressing me to do it, but I wanted to practice more to play the song perfectly, but I heard clearly "No don't wait until you can play it perfectly, step out in faith and go and play the song and I will bless you" (keep in mind this is in front of 10-15 people at a Wednesday Bible study, what God was saying to me for this situation doesn't apply to all situations, duh) So I did, and you know I swear that at that moment God did surgery on me, He opened up my brain and deposited inside me the gift of music, stuff that I never knew before all of a sudden everything starts appearing at once things that I never had a clue about start making sense and I got a unusually strong desire to learn even more and to keep practicing, things are also blooming and sprouting in my mind and I start writing songs, what the heck? Me writing songs? I never played or sung in any band no musical background and never really played any instrument until like the beginning of this year. Yet here I am writing songs, I swear it's just like the people in the book of acts who started speaking in another language, it's a gift from above, I have to say it.
Why would God in this situation ask me to play the song even if it wasn't perfect? Because God knows me and He knows that if I had waited until I could play that song perfectly I probably would have never played it... and that's the thing killing many Christians, it's the fear of failure that's keeping them from using their talents and abilities, God challenged me to face my fears to exercise my courage, and learn that perfect performance isn't everything. God can speak through the mouth of a donkey if He wants to, but I am learning more and more from good teaching that yes we have to pursue excellence for God, but the Spirit tells me that we also can't let it get out of hand and think that God is so hard that He won't allow us to do things for Him if it's not a million dollar production and that He won't give us grace to make mistakes.
There's 2 extremes that keep people from using their gifts(talents) when they are starting out: 1) Thinking you're so worthless that no one wants to see or hear anything from you. 2) Thinking your so big and bad that you can't put anything out unless it's a million dollar production that's really just Godlike in perfection. Being a tradesmen I know that in the beginning they don't let you start out using tools and cutting wood or anything like that, as an apprentice you are using sand paper and sharpening tools and cleaning up garbage lol that's all your doing for a while until the boss says it's time to step up. There are exceptions though, like with my case, if I was too scared to release stuff now and if I were to practice for 5 years so I could become a super musician before revealing any of my stuff then people could just say: " what's the big deal? you are a really good musician that's why you are writing songs" and my testimony would lose it's effectiveness that it seems to have at the moment and God wouldn't be able to display His power through me, but I know God is an expert at taking broken reeds and making them sound really good.
That being said I am all for improving skill and getting better for the sake of God and his elect, a brother actually suggested that I should take guitar lessons(started Sept 19 brap brap) and even offered to pay for it without me saying anything, in what he calls "investing in my talent". Now that's what living the Christian life is all about folks, I can't tell you who it is because he wants to remain anonymous but we should all take our cues from this guy and learn from him and do to others what he has done with me. I want everyone to feel that good feeling that I felt when He did this for me. It felt even better because my finances are tight and it's not something that I would consider top priority, so I probably wouldn't have done it.
My goal for now with this gift is to make create a song that is good enough so that it comes through even with my limited resources, which is Guitar, vocals and bad production( I'm the producer =\ I am getting better though ) I want to make it come through even if the playing isn't bang on, to the ends of getting message across which is that it's all about Jesus.
My long term goal(and none of this is mandatory, but if God is willing then why not?) is to get better at playing the guitar cuz I'm not even close to being good yet, keep writing better songs and then eventually record some stuff with good production that will bring even more glory to the King and Ruler of all Jesus the Christ. I don't want to make money nor am I striving to become famous but for people to be blessed by it, they gotta hear it so I gotta get it out somehow and yet still balance it out with staying away from the trappings that come with the music industry.
This leads me on to a tangent that I gotta get off my chest:
All throughout the Bible I see a theme that people who believe in the one true God are supposed to practice their faith in a way that makes people on the outside want what they have, or in other words make them a little jealous. They are supposed to see the love that God has for us, which is manifested to them only when we love each other, because God and His love are invisible(remember?) so when they see us walk the walk they will see and be like" Man I hate their God, but there's just something about these guys, they are the real deal, I want to be a part of that as well, maybe I should reconsider this God of theirs...." This is how God is glorified! When we can make unbelievers who may never even believe in Him be like, whoa their God is pretty awesome... even if it's just for 3 seconds.
This is the kind of stuff that the Apostle Paul was talking about when he said that we should even be making Jews jealous when they see how much God loves us by how much we care about and love each other. (wow this is hard) Yet I find that it's the other way around sadly, we, the church are looking at the world, and we are jealous of what they have, pfft. Lost souls are looking at the church and they often see 1 of 2 extremes: 1) People who are so religious and know a lot about Jesus but they are not at all relateable and don't know how to share Him with a sinful fallen world most of the time because of bigotry or 2) people who say they are Christians yet are so worldly that they don't have a Jesus to offer at all, and most of the time are too afraid to anyway because they are like my friend Jeff says "undercover Christians". If we are supposed love each other and make unbelievers jealous and be so tight that people look at us and say "man those guys got each others backs better then crips when they're getting raided by bloodz" then we fail at this, I'm sorry. We fail.
Recognizing this, it's a good time to thank God for His grace. =) Oh majestic glorious grace, it can only be truly appreciated when we realize how much we have failed. Believe it.
It seems like such a daunting task as well I'm trying hard to do it and I fail a lot but we gotta learn to not let fear of failure control us and if it's something that is very challenging and requires a lot of prayer we gotta do what we gotta do, but I really wonder if we will be able to succeed in making the Jews jealous before Jesus comes back. I'm just glad that He has worked everything out already and I don't need to panic or fret bearing burdens that are not mine to bear. I need to focus on my responsibility, which is loving people to show that the love that I have for God is authentic and true.
Peace and love my bretheren
Braulio
P.S In case you haven't noticed writing long things is something that also helps me with my depression, I'm not expecting people to read all this, I just like to be funny about it in my emails lol. But if you did read this far then you have just become 2 levels cooler in my eyes then you were before. I wanna give you a high 5 the next time I see you in person( or props if you believe getting high 5ed lowers your swagger meter) By reading you are sharing in my life's journey and hopefully you get something good out of it as well.
My whole life I've never really been musical in terms of being a musician, I got turned off by my snooty music teacher in grade 3, she made it seem like such a task and chore I got bored and turned off completely. So I went through life just listening to songs that were really popular and that everyone else considered to be "good" and that was really about it. About 5 years ago I bought a classical guitar upon hearing a nice rendition of "Greensleeves" I said "I want to play that song on the guitar" also because someone who I really respected played the electric guitar really well I decided that I wanted to do the same but not exactly the same I wanted to be a little different so I bought the classical. Anyway, I never played the darn thing, once every six months I'd pick it up and be like ugh this is too hard! I even would take it with me on vacation to Portugal hoping that I would be able to play it more since I was on vacation, haha yah right. People would ask me "can you play a song for me?" what? no get away from me lol ...
Anyways the year 2012 has been interesting, I got hit with one of the biggest and longest waves of depression I've ever had since I've had depression =( but the good news is that because of it I became more interested in music and I started picking up my guitar and actually playing it everyday until I could play(barely) some worship songs as kind of like therapy, I did this because Dan had once told me that Martin Luther who was a frequently tormented soul, found that music was one of the few things that could calm his furious soul, and it also worked for me. (David playing the harp for king Saul making the Spirit of torment leave him was also something that really made me think).
One of the biggest blocks keeping me from having a healthy relationship with God, from using my gifts and from being a witness to His grace and love(and even keeping me from being friendly) was the battle that I was having with the residues and remains of a serious addiction to pornography that I had before I was a Christian. The strongholds still existed in my mind and kept coming back to haunt me and still do till this day. Now if your not a Christian and your reading this, your probably thinking "what's the big deal? everyone looks at porn, it's the new American pass time, it's not a sin" Trust me, I work in construction and when I tell these guys that work with me that they should stop looking at porn, they look at me like "what?!!?" it never even entered their mind that someone would even ask them to do that lol (that's the world we live in now, if your shocked by this your living in a box). " "me give up porn?! something that I have free access to that gives me so much pleasure and such a big high whenever I want... no way"
These guys never weigh in the bad sides of porn though, the fact that it saps your manhood and if you indulge in it all the time it breeds a spirit of cowardice and turns you into a wimp. In your relationships you become a control-freak expecting and demanding that everyone be as responsive and pleasing as the people in the videos you are watching (conciously or sub-conciously), if you are indulging are you gonna indulge and watch a video with someone who doesn't fill your every desire perfectly? I don't think so...When you try to stop doing it and you realize that you can't stop, my friend you are slave to that thing that you can't stop, your heart needs to be changed by God. Cry out to Jesus and ask Him to change your heart and give you the grace and forgiveness that you need to have a restored relationship with God and start to share your testimony. Ask Him to continue to work in your life till the day you die, it's not a one time event, salvation is a one time event but not our need to cry out for deliverance, every time I sway towards this kind of thinking, the strongholds get a hold of me and I fall. God let's it happen so I learn that I have to remain constantly in conversation with Him and like this God can work to renew my mind and gradually remove the strongholds in the process that is called sanctification.
Anyway I can go on and on about reasons why porn is destructive(scientific studies have found that porn + masturbation releases more addiction related chemicals in the brain then cocaine does, think of the implications when it comes to withdrawal) but that doesn't matter because as a Christian, porn + masturbation is a big no-no. Anything that strays from God's original plan of man with woman is defiling the temple of the Holy Spirit of God, that temple is our bodies. I think that if we take the time to study, we will realize that anything that strays from God's original plan(He knows what He's doing, He's smarter then us) can and will bring short bursts of big pleasure but in the end brings more harm then good and leaves us feeling empty and like a loser, withered and parched, separated from God and burdened with many troubles.
So after having removed my masks and openly confessing to all that I was still stumbling and falling because of the previous addiction to porn I started testifying of how much God has helped me already in becoming free from it, before I followed Christ I used to do it everyday, now I can count on my hand the number of times in a year I give in. That's a miracle! That's so much growth I have to constantly remind myself how far I've come with God's grace or else I will beat myself up when I stumble.
I believe that this was a critical point in removing the biggest "block in the pipe" preventing the Holy Spirit from moving freely and doing His thing in my life(filling of the Spirit as opposed to the initial baptism when you get saved), whereas before He was just in there getting frustrated that I was allowing sin to dominate His temple . There's nothing that keeps Christians in bondage quite like secret sins, the devil just makes punching bags out of them as they try to deal with the sin on their own, they keep falling and confessing and then right back to fighting it again on their own hoping that no one will ever find out(what a huge burden). This is what I was doing. But nothing grieves Jesus more then people who try to receive help from Him and refuse to testify about it and proclaim in jubilant praise that He is helping them. When people know that you struggle with a sin(I'm mainly referring to strongholds like addictions and stuff like that) then it's no longer in the darkness you have brought it out into the light and it is exposed and it loses the tremendous power it has over you, strongholds are broken and chains released, now that people know you struggle, you are held accountable you can't keep doing things in secret anymore and they can pray for you and offer encouragement. It usually starts with telling one person who you really trust and this is the hardest step, and then from there it's easier to share. Start burning bridges.
Anyways back to the music stuff... another important note I remember from a long time ago is : somebody in the church saying that the Bible never says that Angels sing to God but only praise, so that we humans are the only ones that can sing to worship God. Regardless of whether this is true or not, at the time when I heard this I was fuming mad with God(yet still going to church , I don't even know why) so I said: "Oh yah you want me to sing to you eh? well I'm never singing again, ever, you're not getting anything from me >:| " I don't know whether this is funny or not but when I went on Sundays after that, when the songs came on I would just talk the lyrics of the songs in monotone just to try and give a God cheap shot, lol so immature. Me and Him were not just like a married couple, we are a married couple and we fight like it too, the only problem is He always wins in the end. Grrrr. He is working on my heart though so that I have the tendency to fight with Him less and less as time goes by, which is good because I always get a woopin'
I remember one day I was in a church in Bradford and they played some song that just made me really emotional and I asked the guy to teach me it so he gave me the paper with the chords (typical haha) Anyways as I was practicing the song I felt God was telling me to play it for my church and He was pressing me to do it, but I wanted to practice more to play the song perfectly, but I heard clearly "No don't wait until you can play it perfectly, step out in faith and go and play the song and I will bless you" (keep in mind this is in front of 10-15 people at a Wednesday Bible study, what God was saying to me for this situation doesn't apply to all situations, duh) So I did, and you know I swear that at that moment God did surgery on me, He opened up my brain and deposited inside me the gift of music, stuff that I never knew before all of a sudden everything starts appearing at once things that I never had a clue about start making sense and I got a unusually strong desire to learn even more and to keep practicing, things are also blooming and sprouting in my mind and I start writing songs, what the heck? Me writing songs? I never played or sung in any band no musical background and never really played any instrument until like the beginning of this year. Yet here I am writing songs, I swear it's just like the people in the book of acts who started speaking in another language, it's a gift from above, I have to say it.
Why would God in this situation ask me to play the song even if it wasn't perfect? Because God knows me and He knows that if I had waited until I could play that song perfectly I probably would have never played it... and that's the thing killing many Christians, it's the fear of failure that's keeping them from using their talents and abilities, God challenged me to face my fears to exercise my courage, and learn that perfect performance isn't everything. God can speak through the mouth of a donkey if He wants to, but I am learning more and more from good teaching that yes we have to pursue excellence for God, but the Spirit tells me that we also can't let it get out of hand and think that God is so hard that He won't allow us to do things for Him if it's not a million dollar production and that He won't give us grace to make mistakes.
There's 2 extremes that keep people from using their gifts(talents) when they are starting out: 1) Thinking you're so worthless that no one wants to see or hear anything from you. 2) Thinking your so big and bad that you can't put anything out unless it's a million dollar production that's really just Godlike in perfection. Being a tradesmen I know that in the beginning they don't let you start out using tools and cutting wood or anything like that, as an apprentice you are using sand paper and sharpening tools and cleaning up garbage lol that's all your doing for a while until the boss says it's time to step up. There are exceptions though, like with my case, if I was too scared to release stuff now and if I were to practice for 5 years so I could become a super musician before revealing any of my stuff then people could just say: " what's the big deal? you are a really good musician that's why you are writing songs" and my testimony would lose it's effectiveness that it seems to have at the moment and God wouldn't be able to display His power through me, but I know God is an expert at taking broken reeds and making them sound really good.
That being said I am all for improving skill and getting better for the sake of God and his elect, a brother actually suggested that I should take guitar lessons(started Sept 19 brap brap) and even offered to pay for it without me saying anything, in what he calls "investing in my talent". Now that's what living the Christian life is all about folks, I can't tell you who it is because he wants to remain anonymous but we should all take our cues from this guy and learn from him and do to others what he has done with me. I want everyone to feel that good feeling that I felt when He did this for me. It felt even better because my finances are tight and it's not something that I would consider top priority, so I probably wouldn't have done it.
My goal for now with this gift is to make create a song that is good enough so that it comes through even with my limited resources, which is Guitar, vocals and bad production( I'm the producer =\ I am getting better though ) I want to make it come through even if the playing isn't bang on, to the ends of getting message across which is that it's all about Jesus.
My long term goal(and none of this is mandatory, but if God is willing then why not?) is to get better at playing the guitar cuz I'm not even close to being good yet, keep writing better songs and then eventually record some stuff with good production that will bring even more glory to the King and Ruler of all Jesus the Christ. I don't want to make money nor am I striving to become famous but for people to be blessed by it, they gotta hear it so I gotta get it out somehow and yet still balance it out with staying away from the trappings that come with the music industry.
This leads me on to a tangent that I gotta get off my chest:
All throughout the Bible I see a theme that people who believe in the one true God are supposed to practice their faith in a way that makes people on the outside want what they have, or in other words make them a little jealous. They are supposed to see the love that God has for us, which is manifested to them only when we love each other, because God and His love are invisible(remember?) so when they see us walk the walk they will see and be like" Man I hate their God, but there's just something about these guys, they are the real deal, I want to be a part of that as well, maybe I should reconsider this God of theirs...." This is how God is glorified! When we can make unbelievers who may never even believe in Him be like, whoa their God is pretty awesome... even if it's just for 3 seconds.
This is the kind of stuff that the Apostle Paul was talking about when he said that we should even be making Jews jealous when they see how much God loves us by how much we care about and love each other. (wow this is hard) Yet I find that it's the other way around sadly, we, the church are looking at the world, and we are jealous of what they have, pfft. Lost souls are looking at the church and they often see 1 of 2 extremes: 1) People who are so religious and know a lot about Jesus but they are not at all relateable and don't know how to share Him with a sinful fallen world most of the time because of bigotry or 2) people who say they are Christians yet are so worldly that they don't have a Jesus to offer at all, and most of the time are too afraid to anyway because they are like my friend Jeff says "undercover Christians". If we are supposed love each other and make unbelievers jealous and be so tight that people look at us and say "man those guys got each others backs better then crips when they're getting raided by bloodz" then we fail at this, I'm sorry. We fail.
Recognizing this, it's a good time to thank God for His grace. =) Oh majestic glorious grace, it can only be truly appreciated when we realize how much we have failed. Believe it.
It seems like such a daunting task as well I'm trying hard to do it and I fail a lot but we gotta learn to not let fear of failure control us and if it's something that is very challenging and requires a lot of prayer we gotta do what we gotta do, but I really wonder if we will be able to succeed in making the Jews jealous before Jesus comes back. I'm just glad that He has worked everything out already and I don't need to panic or fret bearing burdens that are not mine to bear. I need to focus on my responsibility, which is loving people to show that the love that I have for God is authentic and true.
Peace and love my bretheren
Braulio
P.S In case you haven't noticed writing long things is something that also helps me with my depression, I'm not expecting people to read all this, I just like to be funny about it in my emails lol. But if you did read this far then you have just become 2 levels cooler in my eyes then you were before. I wanna give you a high 5 the next time I see you in person( or props if you believe getting high 5ed lowers your swagger meter) By reading you are sharing in my life's journey and hopefully you get something good out of it as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)