Stop Second-Guessing What You Hear From God and Move Forward With Your Art

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Today, I want to show you some simple ways to start recognizing God's voice clearly without all the second guessing.
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So let's jump in.
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So earlier this week, I was reading comments like I do every week, and my heart just broke when I read this one from an artist who was commenting on one of my videos.
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This this guy obviously loved Jesus, you know, wants to obey him in his life, but he was carrying so much fear and anxiety around his creative desires.
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He felt like, you know, somehow they might be leading him outside of God's will.
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And he started telling me this story, you know, that he had always dreamed of making music.
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One day he finally did it.
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He ended up making his first song.
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And he said, man, it was, it was epic.
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It was awesome.
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You know, he actually described sitting there looking at something that he had only dreamed about, you know, years ago, actually becoming real.
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And I mean, it really sounded incredible.
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But then in that moment, and this is just like the enemy, right?
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The enemy came in in that moment and just struck fear in his heart.
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And he got scared and he started asking things like, well, what if this isn't God?
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And what if I'm not supposed to be, you know, making music?
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What if that's not his will?
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What if that desire is just me?
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And you know what he did in that moment?
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He ended up deleting the song.
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He even deleted the software that he used to make the song.
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And listen, that really just hit me so hard at my heart, not because I know for a fact that it's you know God's will for him to become a professional musician.
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I don't know that.
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But the reason was fear made that decision.
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You know, after more than 30 years of walking with the Lord as a professional artist and mentoring thousands of Christian artists all over the world, I've seen this kind of pattern again and again, right?
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Artists who love God and want to obey Him, but when they don't trust their ability to recognize his leadership in their life, guess what?
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They just start second-guessing everything.
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And eventually they just get paralyzed and stop moving.
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And so that's the first thing that I want you to see right now.
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And this is really huge.
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Fear is not discernment.
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In fact, Paul says in 2 Timothy 1.7 that God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but of what?
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Of power and of love and a sound mind.
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And I love those words, right?
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That word power there actually means that God gives you the capacity to move.
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And love keeps you rooted in relationship with Him rather than all this self-protection, right?
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And and sound mind means sound judgment, like discipline, clear ways of thinking, right?
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Not being pushed around by fear.
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That's God's heart.
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So fear-driven confusion and paralysis are not at all the way the Holy Spirit works.
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It is not his goal for your life, period.
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So just because you might feel, you know, fearful of making the wrong decision in a moment does not mean that that's the Holy Spirit warning you.
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And just because you deeply desire something right on the other side doesn't mean that God's automatically telling you to do it either.
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That's where we need the discernment of the Holy Spirit.
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But listen, discernment was never meant to become this exhausting sort of spiritual interrogation, introspection where you're just terrified that one wrong move is going to ruin your whole life and ruin God's plan for your life.
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And, you know, there's another part of this guy's story that really stood out to me in exactly in line with that.
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And it was this he said, you know, Matt, along my journey, I've been taught that, you know, the Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things.
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So how can you trust anything that's in your heart?
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Now, now listen, that comes right out of Jeremiah 17, 9.
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And yes, that is absolutely scripture, but Jeremiah 17 is not the end of the biblical story about your heart, right?
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Especially in the new covenant.
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I mean, God also promised Ezekiel that I'll give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.
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And then Jesus came, and guess what?
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When Jesus came in your heart, you got born again, and you got made a new creation, and the Holy Spirit came to live with inside of you.
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And then in Romans 8, it says that those that are led by the Spirit of God are the sons and daughters of God.
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So, no, that doesn't mean that every thought or feeling or desire that you have is automatically from God, but it also means that you don't have to live suspicious of everything that's happening inside of you.
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You can absolutely bring your desires and dreams and ideas and opportunities, all of that stuff, right?
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Into relationship with the Lord and learn to recognize his voice and his leadership as you walk with him.
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You know, I love it where Jesus said in John 10, My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.
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Friend, that that is relationship language.
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That's not fear-based condemnation language, right?
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See, no matter what you've been taught or even what you've seen modeled in the past, God is not hiding behind some tiny spiritual bullseye, hoping that you don't accidentally miss it and you're gonna, he's out there ready to punish you.
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No, listen, he's your dad, he's your father.
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He he knows how to lead you, his heart is to lead you, he knows how to correct you, he knows how to redirect you.
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And yeah, sometimes we're gonna misunderstand, right?
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The Bible says we see through a glass dimly.
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I do that all the time, right?
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But our confidence is not ultimately in our ability to perfectly hear God.
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Our confidence is in his ability to love you and lead you faithfully.
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And listen, that changes everything.
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Because instead of constantly asking, well, what if I get this wrong?
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What if I screwed up?
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You can start asking, Father, what are you showing me here?
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Why am I feeling this?
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Why am I seeing this from this perspective?
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What's the next faithful step that I can take with you?
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See, the the issue with this musician that I've been talking about today was not whether every creative desire that he ever had was automatically from God, right?
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We we know that's not true for any of us.
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The issue that was was that fear had become louder than his relationship with the Lord.
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And listen, when fear gets louder than your relationship with Jesus, second guessing automatically takes over, right?
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Doubt takes over.
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And that is never God's best for any of us, especially artists.
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Now, listen, real quick, if this whole struggle with identity and confidence and hearing God's voice and trusting how he designed you, if that's starting to hit home for you right now, I want you to know that uh that's exactly why I created my foundations course.
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It's just 27 bucks.
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Uh, I always put a link here in these videos.
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And it's one of the things that God's using in the lives of thousands of artists all over the world to draw them closer to him, renew their minds, heal their hearts, and prepare them to walk in every good thing that he's designed for them as kingdom creatives.
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Uh, as usual, I'll put a link right here in the description.
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You can grab it today.
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But right now, I want to keep going in this train of thought because I want to show you how to actually start walking this out based on what God's taught me in my own life and also through what his word and through experience has taught me over the years.
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And don't worry, this is not about blindly following every thought or feeling that that pops into your head and just saying, well, that must be God.
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No, in fact, it starts with what God has already made super clear.
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And it's this God will never lead you in a way that contradicts his word or his character.
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So, you know, you we can trust if what you're feeling or sensing requires compromise or dishonesty, manipulation, bitterness, immorality, whatever it is, right?
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You don't need another sign.
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Pretty clear that ain't from the Lord, right?
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But but most creative decisions aren't that obvious, right?
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They're not that black and white.
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They're usually things like, Lord, should I paint this or that?
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Should I pursue music?
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Should I pursue, you know, apply for this opportunity?
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Should I start a business with my art?
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And, you know, unfortunately, there's never going to be a Bible verse that says, thou shalt open an Etsy shop, right?
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So once you're you, you know, once you know you're in the boundaries of scripture, you start moving in the bounds of relationship.
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And that kind of leads to the second thing.
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It's it's learning the difference between the Holy Spirit's conviction and fear-based accusation.
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Now, this is really huge because the Holy Spirit is not about confusion, right?
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In fact, his role, the Bible says, is to lead us into all truth.
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That is, you know, deeper into Jesus.
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And so, of course, the Holy Spirit may correct you and challenge you.
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He may tell you no, he may shut a door in your life.
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But listen, his leadership always draws you toward Jesus and gives you something that you can respond to in him.
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Fear and accusation, I've just found, tend to sound more like accusation, you know, like pointing your finger like, what if you miss God?
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What if you do it wrong?
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What if you ruin everything?
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What if this desire is selfish?
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Just kind of on, you know, auto-loop all the time.
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There's no clear invitation.
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It's just, what if you screw it up, right?
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Accusation and anxiety.
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And so this is where knowing God's word is so important.
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You know, for example, in Romans 8, it says that there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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So when that voice that you're hearing is constantly second-guessing and accusing and condemning and driving you into fear, listen, you don't have to count that as discernment.
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You can just ask yourself, hey, based on God's word, does that sound like Jesus?
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Is this actually the Holy Spirit leading me, or is this fear trying to keep me from moving into what God's got for me next?
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And this is where I'd say thirdly, pay attention to what remains as you surrender those desires to the Lord.
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You know, I really don't believe that desire is something that, you know, we have to automatically distrust as believers.
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But at the same time, I don't believe that every desire that we have is a divine, thus saith the Lord word, right?
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So desire can absolutely be one of the ways that God uses to get our attention, but it's not every way, but it's a great way, right?
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And I mean, in Psalm 37, it says, what?
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Delight yourself in the Lord, and he'll give you the desires of your heart.
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So we bring those desires to him excited and freely.
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We we hold it openly before him and we say, Father, you know, I really want this, or I'm really feeling this definite, you know, deeply in my heart.
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And Lord, would you just confirm if this is from you?
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Or and if it is, grow it.
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If it's not, you know, shut the door, redirect me.
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And then in that moment of freedom, you just watch and you think, well, does that desire keep returning?
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Does it become clearer as I pray?
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Does it align with how God's wired me and gifted me and lead it, you know, leading me in my life?
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Do, you know, trusted leaders and other believers in your life kind of recognize that that God's doing this on your life?
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Listen, over the years, I've kind of learned to not dismiss those patterns.
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You know, I'm actually learning more and more that God uses those desires to confirm the design that he has for our life as artists.
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And that is super exciting.
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Now, fourth, and this may be the hardest one for us chronic second guessers out there.
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Fourth is this take the next faithful step before you have absolute certainty.
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Listen, here's the truth.
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You and I may never get 100% certainty about anything, right?
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I mean, that's why they call it walking by faith, right?
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That's why the Bible says we see through a glass dimly.
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A lot of God's leadership becomes clearer as you walk with him, right?
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I mean, I've experienced that again and again in my own life, in the studio, in business, in ministry.
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There have been tons of times where I've sensed a direction from the Lord, not totally sure about it, but I pray about it.
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I believe God was leading.
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And then I just simply had to take the next step.
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And you know what?
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Sometimes God came in that moment and he confirmed it really clearly.
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Sometimes he was like, hey, you're on the right track, but let's just adjust it.
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Sometimes he redirected me completely.
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Sometimes he just shut the door.
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Sometimes he said nothing.
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And I kept walking because there was no other clear direction.
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But listen, none of that is failure.
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That's called relationship.
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That's called trusting God's heart for you as a father who loves you and has good plans for your life.
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Listen, this is where fear will always come and want to tell you, you know, don't move until you know for sure you're gonna miss God all this.
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You know, you're gonna screw up the whole thing.
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Listen, faith says, Father, I believe that you love me.
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I believe you're leading me.
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I'm gonna take this next step.
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I'm gonna keep listening, I'm gonna keep watching for your spirit to lead me.
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And you just start walking confidently as a son and as a daughter who knows that his father has his back.
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Listen, that's really different from impulsiveness.
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You don't have to worry about, you know, am I running ahead of God?
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You know, that again, that's walking by faith.
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And that's where I want to come back to in this story, this musician, because I mean, ultimately, God may lead him deeply into music.
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He may lead him into filmmaking, though, or weave both together in some way that he can't even see right now.
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I really don't know.
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And it really doesn't matter at this point, right?
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What I do know is this he doesn't have to delete the song and be paralyzed by fear just because he can't see the whole plan.
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He can bring the songs to God.
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He can keep learning, he can keep listening, he can keep taking the next faithful step, and he can trust that his father is going to lead him the whole way.
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And listen, that's the freedom that I want for you and for me too.
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Not the freedom to do whatever you want and just, you know, slap God's name on it.
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No.
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The freedom to walk closely enough with the Father that you're no longer terrified and second-guessing every decision, but you're empowered to walk by faith because God's goal is not to make you a perfect decision maker.
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God's goal is to form you and me into the image of Christ and to teach us how to walk with him by faith is deeply loved, sons and daughters.
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And you know, this is where I always come back to, you know, something I say on the channel all the time.
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I I really believe that God cares much more that you create than what you create.
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And so as you create, I would just say trust the goodness of God in your life that, you know, he's given you gifts, he's given you the capacity, the talents, the desires, he's woven creativity, his creativity into your very DNA and design and with relationship with him, and inside that relationship, that there's a ton of freedom to use to put to work the things that he's put inside of you, the things that were his idea in the first place.
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You know, for a lot of people, especially those who've come out of very controlling, kind of rules-oriented, hyper-religious sort of environments, that kind of freedom, you know, it can absolutely feel kind of scary at first because you get used to kind of needing exact extra instructions from the Lord.
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And so this kind of walking by faith thing feels almost kind of dangerous, but but trust me, that's just a part of growing up and maturing in the Lord.
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You're learning to walk with the Holy Spirit, not just living out of this constant fear of making a wrong move.
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And friend, that is so very freeing.
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Hey, I want to pray for you real quick as we end.
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Father, I I thank you right now, Lord, for every artist, for every creative watching this video right now.
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God, I pray in Jesus' name, whatever they're dealing with, God, every place of fear, accusation, religious control, fear of missing out, fear of that's causing them to shrink back.
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God, I command it right now to be broken over their life in Jesus' mighty name.
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Holy Spirit, I pray right now, God, that you would remind them who they are, your sons and your daughters.
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God, I pray that you'd remind them that you live inside them, that you lead them, that you know them.
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God, I pray, give them confidence in this moment, Lord, to start recognizing your voice and the courage to start taking the next faithful step in everything that you call them to do without fear and without second guessing.
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Father, even dreams right now that have been buried in their heart for so many years by fear and anxiety, God, I pray right now you'd begin to uncork them.
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You just begin to spring them forth right now in their mind and in their heart, and they would know that you're leading them and you're drawing them into the next thing that you have for them as sons and daughters.
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God, we pray today, Lord, teach us.
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Teach us how to walk like this so that we can walk in all the freedom and all the purpose that you have for us.
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We thank you for that, Lord, in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Listen, my friend, it really truly is an honor to walk with you every week.
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I do read every comment.
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And so I pray that you'll you'll leave a comment, you'll let me know what God's saying to you as you're watching this video, even as you're taking some time to even pause this and just ask the Lord to speak to your heart about maybe areas that fear and anxiety and second guessing have gotten a hold in you.
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Listen, He wants to, he wants to break that free, break that off of your life today so that you can walk in freedom.
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And listen, if you're if you're wanting some help in that, which everybody needs, everybody needs help in this.
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I've not I've not ever met one artist that is walking in the fullness of them of this revelation by themselves.
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I didn't until the Lord began to show me.
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And that's exactly why I started doing the foundations course, the Thriving Christian Artist Pathway, all the coaching that we do is to help you start walking in everything that God's got for you.
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To heal your heart, learn to hear his voice, walk confidently in your gifts and in your design, and uh experience the abundant life that Jesus has for you.
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Again, the link to all of those resources are right here in this video.
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And you can click it and uh you can join us today inside the coaching community and start seeing uh God doing incredible work inside your life.
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All right.
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Hey, I love you, friend.
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Do all the stuff like, comment, share, turn on your notifications so you never miss any of the great content that I'm producing.
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And I want you to stay around for this next video because if you're wanting to know more about hearing God specifically in the studio as you're creating, you're gonna love this next video.
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All right, see you there.
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Bye.