The Spiritual Trap Most Gifted People Fall Into

Can someone be incredibly talented and still be ineffective in the Kingdom of God?

In this episode, Julia, Madison, and Mike discuss the difference between talent and anointing and why the two are not the same thing. While talent can impress people, only the Holy Spirit can transform hearts.

Through the lens of worship ministry - and ministry as a whole - we talk about the importance of personal intimacy with God, living a Spirit-filled life, and spending time alone with Him to be refreshed and equipped.

Throughout Scripture, God consistently chose people who didn't look like the obvious choice. He wasn't looking for the most impressive résumé. He was looking for hearts that were fully His.

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YouTube: @SeriouslySisPodcast

Transcript

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I've literally sat back and I've watched someone hit every note going in, like everything, and I look, they're putting on a performance for us. Like they're they're showing them that's what they're doing. We would be really naive to say that any of us that have been on the platform at some point hasn't had to check ourselves. Um God, you know, let me repent of it's not about me. It is not about me. It is about you. Hey, hey, it's seriously says podcast. Welcome back. Um, and this week we want to talk about is it anointing or is it talent? Yeah, yeah, we're gonna talk through that. You know, I we have um three worship leaders here today to talk through this, and I thought it'd be a good subject. So who wants to kick this off? I'll kick it off. Um I do think it's an important subject because if you find yourself um on a worship team or even if it's not like like worship, even if it's not music related, if you find yourself like being called to uh preach or you know, evangelize or whatever, sometimes we have um abilities that God gave us for a specific purpose, like because he's trying to accomplish something. And other times we're just really talented and we're using our talent to get by. And we do have to ask ourselves, each one of us, if God has really anointed us for the particular position we're in, um, in a season, like an anointing can change depending upon a season. Like there's been seasons where um I was not leading worship, like God was working things in and through me, and that's just not where I needed to be in that time. So this is not an indictment, this question, but we can very quickly get into a place where because we're talented and because a room responds to the sound of our voice or to our charisma, or you know, if you're if you're speaking or whatever it might be, that we confuse that with anointing, and that's very dangerous. So since we're the ones in that hot seat, I think we're kind of the best ones to have that conversation about, you know, what God has shown us through our own walk, what we see, and how the Holy Spirit is really not dictated by us, it's the other way around. I think a lot can be said when you're like on a platform and you're leading worship and your worship that you're you're leading. Maybe you're thinking the spirit has to move because of you. You start thinking like that. I've been on platforms where I'm worshiping, and sometimes when you're in charge, there's a lot going on. I'm paying attention to every wrong note that's being hit. This person's timing's off. I gotta pull them back on, and there's a lot going on. Tech issues, and yeah, tech. I'm the queen of tech issues. Yes, I don't know what I'm being equipped for, but something. It's a large battle. It's a large battle that's happening with me. But you know, and I've I've had where I I've been up on the platform and I I'm worshiping and I'm leading, and I don't see things moving for me in me. Like I'm like, I'm not feeling like I'm in worship at that moment. I'm leading, but I'm not feeling worship, but the room is moving, things are happening in the room, and I always have this check myself God, this ain't about me. You're gonna move regardless. Right. And that it's it's such a testament because sometimes we get in a place where like it's not that it's a performance, but we are trying to make it to where we're not distracting. That's what I should say. Sure. Trying to make no distractions, um, trying to make people comfortable too as a leader. Like, hey, I don't want to put you in a place where you're uncomfortable. I don't want to leave you laying out on this lake in a boat with no paddle. I am your paddle. Whatever happens, I will get you back where you need to be. So if you're up there and it's just to put on show, I mean it's just to perform, and that's the only your only concern. Well, it it's very easy to for things to become a perfectionist type thing. Sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can see that. It's uh being called to a position is a beautiful thing, but sometimes we confuse our talents or a gift that God gave us as the place we're supposed to be. Because sometimes that's just a gift that you know he gave you the ability to sing, but your true calling might be in administration somewhere. Um, your true calling might be to be in an area to teach something. You're an amazing singer, but God didn't want you to be on stage, he wants you to be in the back teaching other people how to sing so they can lead from there, which is just as important because we forget that the body of Christ is all of us. Every part is just as important as the other. The feet are just as important as the head. So if you're up there leading from a place of talent, you feel it and you know it. And it's gonna get exposed in some either a little way or a big way, but people are gonna know because when you have the Holy Spirit in you, right? And whether you have the gift of discernment or not, you can know if somebody else is being authentic with their relationship with Christ, because the Holy Spirit in you is telling you that they need help. It's not saying, hey, call them out, expose them uh for being a phony. No, it's saying, hey, I love them still. I need you to talk to them and get them back in the right place. So, and you you mentioned it too, like it you have to check yourself because when you're on a platform, whether you're teaching, preaching, leading worship, uh, even playing guitar in the back, I'm not a vocalist at all. So typically I'm in the back in the dark trying to play the right notes. Um people will still come up and be like, hey, that sounded great. You're doing phenomenal, you're doing great things. I'm like, Yeah, thank you for that. But you got to understand, I'm doing these great things because God gave me an ability to be able to do it and to be able to share it with you. Because through our gifts, this is why God gave it to us. Guess what? He gave all of us different gifts because he wanted us to be in unity, right? What I do with a guitar is supposed to pair what you guys do vocally, right? So showing that unity together and worship brings a congregation together in worship. We're leading from an authentic place. But if it's talent, like you said, it becomes entertainment. And entertainment does not somebody may be moved in that moment, right? But entertainment is not leading biblically, right? I think you know, so often the barometer of that we use to judge whether something is good or not is not the metric that God is using. Definitely not. So, like when I think about it in scripture, like um perfect example is David, you know, when God lifted his anointing off of Saul, and that's a whole nother conversation because the Lord can take his anointing off of him. Right. Yep. Um, but when he lifted his anointing off of Saul and placed it onto David, um, the the prophet at the time went to Jesse and went through all of his sons looking for the one who the Lord had chosen. David was not there, and so he went through all the son, all of his sons, and God was like, I have not chosen that one, I've not chosen that one. All of the ones that you would have thought should be king, you know, the it wasn't the strongest one, it it wasn't the one who had the most leadership skills necessarily, you know, it wasn't the oldest one. That's not who God called. And when the the prophet had gone through all of them was like, I'm basically out of sons, God, he was like, No, there's another one asking for his youngest son. And essentially, God was saying, I don't choose like you guys choose. I don't choose based upon appearance or based upon ability. I choose based upon heart and connectivity with me. What was David doing in the background all those years? He was slaying lions and wolves going after sheep. He was ministering to God just in his own personal time, not seeking a platform. Right. And so God rested his anointing on David because of David's heart posture and because David was a man after his own heart. So what does that mean? We look at talent, right? We look, okay, well, you sing the best, you play the best. So clearly God has called you to this position. Not necessarily. Who is the one that God can use for his purpose? Which is exactly why you'll have someone who's an okay singer or an okay player, and the Lord can use them to move an entire room, but you have someone who's been doing it 20 years, 30 years, is probably the most talented person in the room, and they have, but they have no relationship with God, and they don't move a room the same way that the person with minimal experience does. Now they might impress people, right? Right. But if you have the spirit inside of you, the spirit can recognize the spirit in other people. So it's one thing for me to go to a concert and have a good time because you're singing my favorite song. It's another thing for me to tap into worship of the King of Kings, which actually takes my attention off of you and puts it back onto God. That's how you know that you have an anointing to do something. Now, you may also be talented. Your gifting may serve you in other areas. You may be able to cut that single and it go triple platinum. But just because you can do that doesn't mean that you're anointed by God. Doesn't mean that he's put his mantle on you to carry out his purposes. And I think that we should be very careful about whether or not we let our goosebumps dictate whether the spirit is there or not. Yep. Because now you're talking about as worship leaders, we are not called to create an emotional response. Same thing with if you're preaching or teaching, you're not called to create an emotional response because that means through motivation, you're choosing to be a Christian. And motivation can last you what, a week, two weeks, maybe. How long did it last you last time? You know, maybe more or less than whatever. But you we want to create an obedient response. We want to invite you to a place that you're authentically coming to Christ, you're choosing to remain with Christ, you're choosing to struggle through all the things that get you closer to him and continue on those battles. But oftentimes that emotional response that we we see from the congregation, you know, it it feels good, right? Getting the kudos does feel good. Having people be excited feels good, but you have to level yourself out and understand no no, I don't want you to be in an emotional state. I want you to be so authentic that don't clap for me. You know, scream out to God, cry out to God, whatever you need to do. I know she's not a big fan of crazy crazy. I'm not a big fan of clapping. Yeah, but it is it's about directing the congregation to Christ. You know, honestly, like if I ever had my own church, I would pitch the idea of like, what if we removed the stage? What if we were just on the flat ground with everybody else? Let's get rid of all the fancy stuff, let's just worship in such a raw state that we don't feel like we always need the lights and the smoke. Is it great? Yeah, because it captures some people's attention and that's how we we pull them in, you know. But for me, I'm like, if we want to be completely authentic, let's remove all the distractions, right? Let's solely focus on the act of praise and worship so we can move into the worship, right? Whatever the word or the message is that day. So yeah, it's it's a dangerous place to be. If you if you're not surrounded by people that um that are willing to love you enough to tell you the truth, then it's going to be a dangerous place. And if you are a person that are surrounded by people that are trying to tell you the truth and you're brushing them off, good luck because that conversation with God or that smite that's about to come upon you. Not the smite. When you're in a I firmly believe, and we've seen it through news articles, if you are in a position of leadership and you are in front of the congregation, God's going to expose you in a way that the congregation finds out that you are a phony. And that's that you can't run from that. You know, God exposes all of it, but it's an exposure because He loves you so much. You know, it's like uh I think I was talking to you on the phone, I always I mess it up. I was trying to get it right the other day. Um, I saw this thing, this this lady was saying, be thankful that you still have the ability to repent of your convictions, as opposed to, hey, guess what? You're done. You had you had one more day and now you have zero more days. But I think if you uh if you want to be a worship leader or preacher or teacher, you uh need to start praying for great uh people to be around you that are deep in the word that love you enough to keep you on that narrow path because a lot of times you know you think you're doing right, but you're not here. When I think of um like the position that you're in when you're up on the stage and worship, and I've done quite a few auditions, and you know, I usually sit in then when I watch, and you can tell the difference between a performance and when someone is worshiping during the audition. I've literally sat back and I've watched someone hit every note going in, like everything, and I looked they're putting on a performance for us, like they're they're showing off. That's what they're doing. We would be really naive to say that any of us that have been up on the platform at some point has not had to check ourselves. Of course. You had to say, um, God, you know, let me repent of it's not about me. It is not about me, it is about you. I think you can tell a lot by the fruit people bear outside of that platform. Like, what are they doing outside of the platform? That tells me a lot about the anointing that they have on them. I I don't think you bear that anointing and you can be ugly. You lead from here and be ugly over here. It doesn't work like that. But also, um, I know we were talking about before this started going about worshiping in your private time and how you're worshiping and the worship in your private time does look different than the worship on stage. It's it's your private time with the Lord. Right. Every song that we do, whether I love them or don't love them. There's sometimes, you know, you get a song and you're like, okay, this, like, why? You you will catch me not practicing it because of course I practice it, but let me worship to this song. Let me take some time and really listen to what the song has to say. Let me understand what this what what the words are saying. Because if I'm gonna be singing it, I need to understand what I'm singing. Right, like it's just that simple. We've had where songs had words that we knew were not biblically accurate. And we changed the words and we changed the words because we we identify that. You know why? Because we are worshiping in private, we're paying attention to what we're doing. It's not about getting up there and getting an emotional response from the congregation. The Holy Spirit will do what the Holy Spirit is going to do. That anointing is gonna show regardless our parameter parameter, I don't know, our our gauge sometimes is off that response. Right. Like, let's get the smoke, let's oh, how cool can we make the lights? You know, I'm really I'm impressed with how the Lord puts up with us. I really am when I think about it. Like He puts up with our, we're like so childish sometimes. Like, oh, I want the lights to match our outfits, and I I wanna, I want the smoke to be right here so it's all smoky and like I want like all these things you want, and uh I it it's it's just so interesting and so crazy, like the Lord, his grace, and how he just puts up with us because we're a freaking mess. Yeah, you want to challenge a worship team, uh, and this happened to us, and I thank you for letting me play your tiny guitar, but uh let the power go out. Yeah, yeah. All three of us are on stage that day. I remember that. Yeah, let the power go out and let's see uh if you really have it to lead worship with the congress. And we did. I felt like we did phenomenal. It was just one acoustic guitar, but hundreds of voices singing. Like I didn't even need to play once everybody started singing, then they knew where we were going. We needed you to play. You didn't need me, you didn't need to play. Someone had to play. It wasn't gonna be me. There's been times on stage where I just stopped playing because I was just so in the moment. Like, I didn't even know anybody else was in the room. It was literally just me and God, and I just felt him holding me. And I'm like, man, like I don't need to worship. But when everybody else is still worshiping, that's how you know it's authentic because it's not about me and what I can do on a guitar, it's not about what the drums are doing or anything like that. The joyful noise is the posture of all of our hearts crying out to God with authentic love for who he is and what he does for us. And you know, I when I went on the mission trip to Bangladesh when we did the church service with them, um, there's like 70 people there. We're sitting outside, we got blue tarps on the ground, so nobody's sitting in the dirt. One guy pulls out a book and it's in their native, their native language, and he starts singing Christian hymns in their native language, but every single person, to include the ones that were Buddhist and Hindu, were singing. And when they started singing, I was like, same thing. Like I you were saying earlier, I did not know what they were saying, but I knew who they were singing to, and I knew that they were singing from a place of love. It was just so powerful, and then like just witnessing that. Um, like I recorded part of it on my phone, and I was like, man, this is this is so impactful. They have absolutely nothing, no microphones, no speakers, no reverb, no course, no nothing. Just people worshiping God. No reverb is crazy. No, but like, I mean, the the key point of everything that y'all are saying is anointing requires the Holy Spirit. It does. Because there is no anointing without the spirit. Absolutely. And so when you're you're gauging, like, am I anointed, or even let's take it off of us for a second. Like, let's say you're the congregant, you know, to know, like, is the spirit here? That's how you know if there's an anointing in that room, whether it's on the leader or just someone there, like, is the spirit there? And what you were talking about, we were talking about off um off-camera, is that the spirit always recognizes the spirit. It does, yes. It's very hard to communicate that to someone who doesn't have the spirit because, like the word says, the things of God are foolishness to the world. But someone who has the spirit can always recognize the spirit, and the spirit is also something you can't fake. No, you're not. Correct. I can lean on my talent to get me through, I can lean on reverb to kind of smooth out my notes. I can lean on pitch correction to make me sound better, but I can't fake the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is there and he wants to move, he's going to move regardless. And so it takes a sensitivity to the spirit to know if you have an anointing, if there's an anointing in the room somewhere, and whether the spirit is truly moving. But here's the thing though: there will be people in the very same room you're in who will miss it. Yeah, the spirit is going to do what he wants to do, regardless of us. You know, we might try to stifle him, and and we may keep him from, and when I say keep him, I only say that because of the the scripture that says that they forgot the Holy One of Israel and they limited his power. Sometimes God will only do what we what our faith will allow for him to do. But there's some grandma in that congregation who is worshiping for real. There's a grandma in the congregation. There's a grandma in the congregation who is worshiping for real, and the Lord is moving in her. And anybody who is worshiping with that authenticity is going to experience the spirit. I've seen it. There's been times where, like, especially like we have uh one of our campuses has multiple services, right? One service is like it was cool, and the second service, yeah, it was good. The third service that's got three people in it, the third service, yo, that we did the same songs, same song, same setup, same everything, but for some reason the spirit moved. And whether that was our heart posture changed or somebody walked in that room that had a heart posture that was different, the spirit moved in a way that nothing changed about what we did, but something definitely changed about what happened in that room. And so if the spirit is not there, you can't have anointing. No, and and likewise, if you're in a leadership position, if the spirit is not inside of you, and that can happen moment to moment. Like we can get, we can start off really well. You had talked about finishing well. You you can start off really well and then get derailed. Yeah. If if you're not walking in the spirit, he's not really big on cosigning your mess. Like you said, a good leader has fruit on and off the stage, right? A good worship leader is worshiping at home, not just on the stage. And so if you're not operating in the spirit, you might be operating in talent, which can get you far, but it doesn't fool God. I think um something as leaders we have to recognize, and I either you have to have a good team with somebody that has that spiritual gift of discernment, or you better pray that God gives you discernment with the people that you're talking to. Because as a leader, you got to be able to tell, okay, if am I if I'm bringing this person on the team, am I bringing them because of their talent or because God has appointed them to this position? Because something that I've I've heard throughout my Christian life a lot is, you know, that that person was appointed by God or anointed by God to be in that position. I was like, no, that person was hired by his boss. And I know this because the spirit inside of me is it it feels sick when I'm around that person, right? Um, so you you gotta make sure that you're in tune with the Holy Spirit and making sure that the person you're putting in this position, whether they're in a leadership position or coming into your ministry, whatever ministry it may be, make sure you're not bringing them in because they talk well, they got fancy words, or they're they look pretty. Um, because it could be the most rugged, dirty looking dude that you've found. Probably doesn't smell good, but he knows Jesus like the back of his hand, and he speaks truth and it resonates across the you know the room. Sure. And that is why God made us all different, because he's like, I'm not gonna give all my gifts to one man because I know that man's gonna abuse it, right? Spreads it out so that way we find each other and we do this life together, like he called us to do, and we live in that unity and we understand that like I can be good at playing guitar, but man, this dude over here that I just met at the gas station, that he might even be homeless. That guy can talk about Jesus and he has led more people to Christ than probably many other people than I know. When I think about the um talent versus um you know, anointing, I think about just I don't want to say famous, but popular worship leaders, and there's a lot of popular worship leaders that they're not they're not super talented, if I'm being honest, like they have some strange voices. Like you listen to it and you're like they wouldn't have gotten a record deal. There's no way it has to be the Lord that they wouldn't have gotten a record deal. But some of the most anointed, and I know like Stephanie Gritzinger, I love her. She has a very different voice, like in a not normal, yeah. Yeah, in a normal like stage, she wouldn't be the person you pick to be the worship leader. She doesn't have that that perfect recording voice, I guess is what I would call it. Yet here she is, like in all the imperfections, that's where the Lord's showing up. Like like to your point, sometimes we think when the voice sounds like butter, that that has to be it. And I think people get confused and they put people in positions and they're like God gave him the most beautiful voice. It just it has to be, he he has to be called to do this because the voice is so pretty, right? And you know, being at one point on the world side of this whole music thing, I know full well that there are people who didn't make it in RB or didn't make it in pop music and thought, okay, well, it'll probably be easier for me to make it in worship music. So they pivot. Yeah, they don't pivot because they have a work a heart for worship, they pivot because it's a faster direction to what they want. Yeah. In terms of fame or notoriety, all those things. Um, but their heart's real desire was to make it an RB or to, you know, make it in in regular hip-hop, or you know, to make it in those things and that didn't really pan out. So now we're gonna pivot to where I can maybe stand out a little bit more. So fruit in the spirit is really important for us to gauge who we're going to follow and who we're going to allow to have any kind of weight in our lives. But again, I always turn it back to us, and you said this earlier. Every moment we need to be checking ourselves. Yeah. Because just as quickly as I can be in the spirit, I can be out of it. And I uh know full well that just like the Lord can lay his anointing on a particular person, he can lift it. We see it, like we we've seen it with all of the kings of Israel. If you read their stories, some of them ended well, most of them did not. And a lot of times their position was taken from them and given to someone else because they wouldn't do it God's way. And we shouldn't ever think that that can't be us, right? You know, God is God is on mission, really. He's trying to accomplish, not trying, he's going to accomplish his perfect will. And he wants to use us to do that. But if we get out of alignment, he'll find someone else that will do it. So we should never be arrogant enough to think, oh, I'm talented, right? You know, so you know, I got this. I'm I'm gonna be able to, you know, ride this out, or you know, we should never that's when your voice cracks right in the middle of the chorus. You can play this song, right? You thought you could play the solo. Let me go ahead and just stumble your fingers. Oh, the wrong note five times in a row. Everybody heard it. Every second, everybody online heard it. And and you know, the thing is you were talking about this, you know, it being the most unlikely of characters. When I think about the Bible, all the people that were like powerful in uh Old Testament and New Testament, they were always the most unlikely of characters. John the Baptist carried Elijah's spirit, he he wore hides and ate honey and locust. Probably not the guy that you're picking, exactly, you know, or or Peter killed Christians, killed them, and he is one of the most uh predominant voices in the entire uh New Testament, and he said himself, I did not come with persuasive speech, I came with nothing except Christ and Him crucified and power. The Lord loves Himself a redemption story, he does, he does powerful. So if you just because you look the part or because you check the boxes of what the world says or the church says that it's supposed to look like, if God doesn't have your heart, I don't know if you have his anointing. You might have a position that a man gave you, and you might have gotten that position at one point because you did have that. But if you're not consistently checking yourself and allowing the Lord to correct you, um, and and taking time if you need to. I know we've said on numerous occasions we've sat ourselves down, you know, in particular, um, in particular leadership leadership positions when we knew we were off. Like, I'm gonna chill out because I'm really not trying to get what is the word smoked? What is the smite? Yeah, I'm really not trying to do that, or cause a whole bunch of casualties of you know, these people that God has entrusted me to lead, you know. So it's it's something that I take very seriously being um being a worship leader, that you know, like everybody knows, hey, listen, I'm not above reproach. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not above reproach, I am not a celebrity, I am not above y'all. Just for this season in time, I have been tasked to lead this ship, but I kind of need some people on this ship. So like come with me. Like, this isn't this isn't just about me. You know where I think we we really mess up, and this is good leaders and and bad leaders, but all leaders need to be reminded that during the time Jesus was walking the earth and in his ministry, he fasted and would go pray with just the father. Instead of healing people, instead of ministering, telling everybody about God the Father, he's like, you know what? I'm gonna take this next block of time, and this is just for me and the Father, so I can recharge my spirit, I can stay connected to the Father. So when you have worship leaders or pastors, and sometimes it's just because you have nobody else, like Manning is low, but when you're up there every Sunday, every Saturday, every Wednesday night, or whatever you have going on, you're up there all the time, you forget that you're human. If Jesus needed to sit down and take a break and be with the Father, you for sure have to sit down and take a break with the Father because you are not carrying the same multitude of power and understanding, even though he empowered us with all the gifts. But due to our flesh and our desires, our selfishness, you know, our pride's like, Oh, yeah, I'm not tired. No, you're tired. God is telling you you're tired. God is trying to get you to sit down, not to take away your position or your title, but because he loves you enough and he knows that even that even his son got tired and had to take a break with him. You, as me, as his son, you as his daughters, we all got to sit down and take a break with the father because that's the main thing we're supposed to do is love him. You know, teaching his people and leading his people is a great gift and and a great empowerment and a great mission that he's given us. But first, we have to love him and spend time with him. Because, you know, your ministry could get really led by the fact of oh, every Sunday we're doing the greatest worship. I got a thousand people clapping for me. Okay, when was the last time you talked to Jesus? Other than that Sunday prayer that you've been doing in front of the congregation? When was the last time you actually heard him or felt him? So when's the last time your leading transforms someone's life? Yeah, yeah. It's it's one thing for you know, as to we get like Sunday is like our, you know, whatever, I don't know, I don't really do sports except that's but like Sunday is like our game day, right? Like it's the day where we go and we're around people who should be like-minded with us and we can be comfortable and all those things, but like if it's not transforming you, and not just the worship, if the sermon that you're getting is not transforming you, if the relationships that you're a part of are not transforming you, if the the worship experience is not changing you, then there's a couple questions you gotta ask. A, am I in a place where the spirit is? If the answer is yes, am I in a place to receive the spirit? Needs to be the very next question. If all my singing is doing is tantalizing your ear, what am I up there for? Like that's not that I can sing anywhere and do that and sleep in on a Sunday. Sleeping in. That's nice. I can do that anywhere, but yeah, I I know I recognize that the gifts that I have, big or small, whatever they may be, the gifts that I have, the Lord gave me for him, not for me. So if I'm using it, I want to see his mission accomplished through it. Um, if that's not happening, I gotta ask myself, what am I doing? Because I know it's not that he doesn't want to move. Yeah, you can't have your your gauge of how you the only time that you get to spend time with the Lord and the only time that you actually invest and you're doing it Sunday morning. Right. That's it. Sunday morning I worship my Bible with the pastor on Sundays. That's when I'm reading my Bible. You know, I'm worshiping on Sunday for 30 minutes, you know. That's that's when I'm get time to spend with the Lord. Like it's easy to get busy and it's easy to get distracted, but it's also easy to be selfish and just like be like, you know what? I could spend some time reading my Bible. I could instead of talking on the phone on my way to work today, I could, you know, listen to a podcast or listen, like read scripture or do things, but I'm not gonna do that. Um, I'll make time for it. Sunday's coming, it's fine. Like, you should be, especially as a leader, you want to have anointing. Okay, where's your source? Right, what are you tied to? Is it just what you're doing on Sunday mornings? That's when you're tied. Do you know many times? Like, if if I really was to stand up on stage and say the like me feeling the Holy Spirit is moving and but the congregation, I don't see a response from that first row. If that was how I determined that, well, then I would stop worshiping. Right? That'd be in a constant state of depression. Right. If if that's how I but you know what? I can I can worship regardless. You know why? Because in my spare time and my free time, I worship. I spend time with God. I am a worshiper, not just on stage on Sundays, I'm a worshiper. When things aren't going well, I'm worshiping. When things are going well, I'm worshiping. When I wake up in the morning, I wake up and I worship on my way to work. That's what I'm doing. I'm listening to worship. That's what I do. So, like any leader that wants to be on stage and say, you know, um, I want to have anointing, I want to be able to lead the congregation. I want to do those things. I just don't know why. What does your personal life look like? How can I not have anointing when I'm spill spending all week with God? Right. That when I get on stage on Sunday, I'm pouring out what I've spent all week with. Yeah. How's that how's that possible? Exactly. You can't pour from an empty cup. Yeah. And I was thinking about um in the the Old Testament, the priests, when they would uh go into the temple, there was a fire that they were supposed to keep burning. It was never supposed to go out. That never stopped. Like it stopped in that sense, but now the Holy Spirit, which is sometimes represented by fire, sometimes represented by oil, is in us. Right. It's our responsibility to keep that fire burning. It's our responsibility to keep our lamps full of oil so that we're not found wanting. That's our responsibility to tend that. And the only way that you truly and authentically cultivate that is by spending time in the secret place with God, just you and Him, because eventually you will get burnt out. Right. Yeah. Eventually you will. You can't give something you don't have. And I know when I'm getting tired and when I'm getting burnt out, I'll be the first one to tell y'all I'm about to shut down my life because I need to. Literally, she just leaves and just leaves us, barely gives a notice. Like you're on vacation. I'm like, where where did you where did you go? Yeah, I'm out. Yeah, and and I'm I'm not irresponsible, but but I am um I'm very unapologetic about it because I've seen what happens when I prioritize God. Yeah. And I'm telling you, there's been times, don't tell my boss, not this job, other jobs, where I've shut down my life and been like, I'm not going to work today. Because me spending time with the Lord is more important in this moment for me. And it's crazy because people don't think like that, but it's not, you're not wrong. Like, not going to work because you need to spend time with the Lord, that should be a priority. Now, for corporation, they're probably not going to give you a sick day for that. I'm just letting you know. That's fine. But but like that's the level of priority he should have. To the extent that I am going to take from my pocket the money, you know, that's what the world runs on. I'm going to take from my pocket because I know I need to spend time with God. So be it. Yeah. I got to let down man because I know, like specifically my job, a lot of people depend on me. I have to let them down today because I have to spend time with God. Right. That's faith. And having faith with that, it has to be visible. And for that faith to be visible, if you have to not go to work that day or you have to change plans with your friends because you would rather spend time with God, anybody that's mad about that, guess what? God's going to prune that out of your life. And by your faith and obedience to Him, He's going to provide you abundantly what you need. So yeah, if you if your job is trying to make you sacrifice your life and all your time to keep you away from God, because that's essentially what it is, because they expect you to work those hours because they want the money that you can bring in, that's fine. They can have it. Somebody's going to replace me that's hungry to be in the world. I'm hungry to be in the kingdom of God. So guess what? That's where I'm going to go. If I'm living off ham and cheese sandwiches for a week, that's going to be the best holy ham and cheese sandwich I ever ate. All I'm saying is anytime that I've done that, though, in all seriousness, um, and to your point, it has cost me, you know, like didn't get a sick day or you know, whatever. But in the grand scheme of it all, I've never come out wanting. I remember there was a time early in my walk where um I had first understood this concept of shutting down my entire day. And so I was like, all right, cool. They keep telling me to do this, so I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna try it, God. We're gonna see. And so I shut down my entire day. I was in college, and um and I spent the whole day with the Lord, whether in prayer or or singing, worshiping, or um listening to sermons or whatever. Well, about five o'clock that day, I realized I had a paper that was due today. It's a little late to be trying to get that paper in that I was supposed to turn in at 11. And it's it's so far removed from me. I'm not that old, but it's so far removed from me that I don't remember the details. It's written down somewhere. But I remember that the next time I had that class, I found out that either the deadline got extended or something point blank, God met me and I was not found wanting because I prioritized him. And I still was able, and if anybody knows anything about me, I don't do B's, I only do A's. So the idea of not that affecting my grade, my flesh was like, oh heck no, we can't be doing that. We're trying to walk across the stage with chords, like we can't be doing that. Um, but that was my personal sacrifice in that was be like, you know, I can't prioritize my academic accolades over what I'm saying I want with the Lord, and only to find out that like whatever the assignment was didn't matter. Like it either got uh pushback or I think what it was is it got canceled. I think that's what it was. I think it got canceled, forget forget how just get rid of it. Yeah, and so I'm just like and you didn't even have to write it. That was crazy, and I didn't have to write it, and I am I am a chronic procrastinator, at least I was back then. Um, anyway, so trying to get that done last minute probably wouldn't have worked, but I say all that to say anytime that I've shut down my life, and when I shut down my life, I shut down my life. You're not getting in, unless God tells me to answer my phone. Um, but it's never not paid off. Yeah, I I agree. I think that um I'm thinking about all the situations that I have found myself in on stage during worship. Um they laugh, but I'm known to have every technical difficulty you can think of. It's happened at one time. Oh, we had the power go out. Um iPad iPad died. We had no playback, keyboards break, keyboard stops. Confidence monitor because confidence monitor. If it's happened, it's happened to me. Mic's died, yeah. Microphone died in the middle of accident dying, so you can't hear what everybody's doing. Yep. Someone's pack was playing elevator music one time. I mean, it's just crazy. Everything that has happened, no one else has these problems. This is crazy. It's just me, just me. But you know, sometimes, you know, the one thing that happened that was really big was um playback died one time. And if you're a worship leader, you know that. Um, sometimes when you don't have all your instruments, you put the instruments in the playback. Now, we had all the instruments that day. We did. Um, however, I was playing the acoustic guitar, right? And um I'm a fantastic acoustic guitar player. Um, anyways, I'm playing this good. This might not be her anointing. And um, I remember uh Michael came to me and he was like, the iPad's not working, and my flesh has gone through every emotion you can think of. Like one of the five stages, grief, disbelief, like bargaining, anger, like everything. There's 17 seconds on this clock. I he tells me it's not working. I have another singer that's supposed to be leading this song. She's freaking out, like looking at me and everything. And I had a moment where I wanted to just walk off. Like I was like, I gotta get out of here. This ain't gonna go well. This is not a good idea. Um, and I just felt like this, like the Holy Spirit. And I I it was just we're gonna worship. That's immediate. It was just like a split second. I think there's three seconds on the clock. I look over at the piano player and I start playing the song. And he looks at me, he's like, Okay, okay, we're gonna do this. I look over at the the singer and she's looking at me, and I'm playing the thing, and I said, sing. She goes, Okay, let's sing. And we did it. We just said like I just had to get to the point I was like, you know what? All right. I felt like it was a test. Okay. We're gonna worship. Like it, it don't matter. We're gonna worship. We're gonna do it. And we just started worshiping. I at some point I didn't even notice that we didn't even have an iPad. You know, I didn't we didn't have a talk back. We didn't have anything, like we didn't have a click track to keep us on beat. I don't know who was playing the drums. Thank God for them. Yeah, yeah. Um, to keep us keep us where we needed to be. And we just started playing. Like I had my my meltdown, um, where I was like, Lord, it lasted approximately three seconds. Where I literally threw a little hissy fit with the Lord, me and him, right here. And it was just like, you need to just get over it. And I was like, okay, let us let us worship. And and I can think back on it. It was one of the best services I think we played. Yeah, it was good. I mean, we were all very just locked in. I wasn't thinking about nothing. I forgot what was happening. We just started worshiping, and I come, I didn't realize we didn't have a click. Yeah, I love that worship. I was like, whatever. And at the end of it, I was like, I love that too. I was like, oh wow, Lord, you know, look at look at this. Yeah, I'm so happy I practiced like I practiced. Yeah, but I I say that to say, like, you know, things like when they happen, that really determines, are you putting on a performance? Is that what it's about? Because if it's about performance at that moment, throwing the towel, Lord, I'm out of here. Let me get out of here because there's no way we're gonna do this. Yeah, because how can we perform under these circumstances when you're authentically worshiping all of those catastrophes? Yeah, the Holy Spirit shows up every single time. I've never seen him not show up. Power went out, the Holy Spirit showed up. I didn't have a voice that Sunday. I don't know if you remember that. I wasn't even singing, I was just playing around. Yeah, because I was singing the blood, which is your song. You were singing for me, and I wasn't singing, and the power went out, and I was like, I had no voice, and I thought to myself, who's gonna address the congregation? Well, thank God for Mike. Um, but it's so easy to get caught up in in um a performance, anointed or not anointed. Yeah, it's very easy to get caught up in talent and get caught up in performance. It really is. And um, in these positions that you're in, especially on the platform, Satan himself, right? Even on the especially on the platform, it's such a hard, it's such an easy place to get in uh and start to become a person that has no character, right? It's easy to lose your character on the platform. Oh, yeah, that's the quickest place to lose. It's easy to turn into something it's not. That's why you see it happens a lot with worship leaders where you they come out that things are happening that shouldn't be happening behind closed doors. What are you doing behind closed doors? What is your anointing like? Where's the fruit? Right, what does that look like? Exactly. Yeah, but don't be discouraged. Everybody at some point in time can fall short in their ministries and what they're doing. But when you are surrounded by people that love you enough, just listen to them, remove your pride. There's been many a times, Maddie and some of my close brothers that have talked to me about stuff or talked me through things, and you just gotta listen. Um, be open, listen to the Holy Spirit, because we are human and our flesh likes to get in the way or we forget and get busy. So don't be discouraged. If you find yourself leading from talent at first, you can go to a place to where you are leading from the Holy Spirit. You just got to get in tune with Christ. If you find yourself, you feel like you're losing your anointing or you feel like you're losing your gift, it's God's system check on you. He's letting you know, hey, come back to me because I am the priority, nothing else. If you focus on me, everything else will come into play how it's supposed to be. So you literally just have to let go of the chaos and the craziness and just take God's hand and you'll be perfectly fine. Easier said than done, but it can be very simple. Yeah. And I'll say right on the heels of that, be encouraged because you don't have to be the most talented one in the room to be anointed. There may be somebody who sings better than you. There may be someone who bless your heart. You're not doing it right. Just there may be someone in the room who sings better than you. God knows that I'm not the best singer in the room. So there may be someone in the room who sings better than you. There may be someone in the room who plays better than you, but if your heart posture can be used by God, you can still have his anointing and you can still be called to the position that you find yourself in. So don't uh equate your anointing, if you will, to your level of talent because it the two are not the same. And I want to encourage you and say that if God gave you the talent, if you put in the time, he'll give you the anointing. The time in his presence specifically. You put in the time with him and you you do walk it the way that he's made it to be, um, he will give you the anointing. Because I don't think God gives talent for no reason. I truly don't believe that. Now, whether you want to have that anointing, you want to have that character, he's not gonna force you there. Sure. Just the truth. He's a respecter of people. All right, I think I'm done. You guys good? I'm good. I'm good. All right, see you guys later.