 Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, check one, two. What's up, big dog? How you doing, bro? Hi, babe. We made it. So I want you to introduce to you to my family first. Babe, why don't you come up real quick? This is my wife, Anna. Bam. This is our oldest, Gabriel Phineas. He's nine. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. This is Lily Joy, and she's five. Can you wave to everybody? And this is River Kate, and she is very shy right now. Can you wave and say hi to everybody? No? Do you want to say anything? Can you hear her breathing? Want to say anything? Hello. So this is my family. I just wanted to say hi to them before we start. OK, love you. Go with mama. Go get some food. Check. If you can give me just a touch less, that'd be great. Oh, sweet Jesus, I'm out of breath. What is wrong with me, man? So, hey, guys, how y'all doing? You good? A Rise Shine conference. How many of you guys have been to one in the past? Oh, dang. So a lot of you. That's amazing. So glad to have you guys. This is incredible. It's kind of weird that it starts in the morning for whatever reason, but it did. I woke up. I was like, what are we doing? Why am I up at 6.45? This was not smart. But you know, it is what it is. We surrender, right? I'm surprised anyone showed up with that title. I'd be like, nah, I'm good. I'll go to something else. I ain't trying to surrender to nothing. This will be fun. How long do we have, by the way? Gretchen, how long do we have? One hour, OK. What time is it, actually? Got it, OK. The reason I'm out of breath is because I forgot my laptop. And I was covering, see? I was surrendering to marriage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. See, it says, husbands, lay down your lives for your wives. That's what I was doing right there, loving her as Christ loved the church, covering her faults, not showing you how incredibly frustrated I was before I walked into this room. So, and I actually forgot it. Praise God, I was glad I was able to get that off my chest. That really helped me a lot, actually. I probably would have been harboring some bitterness up here. And I forgot my laptop. And then I ran over here with the kids because River did not want to leave Daddy. So that's why you got to meet the family. So it was fortuitous in the end. Everyone knows the whole Asbury family now. And, babe, can I, babe? Yes, sir, yep. I am released to tell all of you, the first people ever, besides our really close friends, Anna is pregnant. So, ooh, oh yeah. So baby number four is on the way. And that's why I'm teaching on Surrender. Because as any of you know with kids, that's all it is, just dying to yourself. It's a beautiful, wonderful, long, slow death. Ah, it's good, it's fun. So yeah, Surrender. Wow, like I feel like that's what my whole life has been. One long Surrender, one long, slow death. And that truly is the way it's supposed to be. I think so many times we think, oh, it's just all uphill and I'm going to the next level and new glory to glory and faith to faith. And I look at most of the Bible in the New Testament and I see Jesus going, die to yourself, take up your cross. If you want to gain your life, lose it. All those types of thoughts that we don't really love preaching on or talking about, especially as worship leaders, we just want to be awesome and have bigger stages and bigger crowds and bigger songs and bigger everything. And it's like, I don't feel like that's what the Lord ever prescribed, especially if you look at the New Testament. So today we're going to stare at some of those thoughts and hopefully begin to or at least continue to say yes to Surrender. So I've been, I won't give you the whole backstory just because we don't have time, but Anna and I said yes to the Lord in a really difficult way. The beginning of this year it started. I've been taking the whole year off travel not doing anything, no conferences, no trips, no nothing. Just staying at home because that's what we knew was right for our family. And if, hello, how are you? Okay, I'm back. I don't know, I had to talk falsetto, but if you know anything about what last year looked like for us it was like incredible, business was booming. Like, you know, Reckless Love was a massive song and we never had any idea that it would be what it was. But the Lord was doing so much and the song was going everywhere and all these invitations are coming in and all the stuff that I had always wanted to do was knocking at my door and I was so fired up because I was like, oh, I get to do big stages and all this stuff, you know, like, I'm thinking like I've put in 14 years of work. Like I've been leading since I was 14 years old. My math is off because that only makes me 29 and I'm actually 33. And that's why I lead worship, okay, beloved? I didn't freaking go to college, I don't know Jack. I don't know why y'all are here. I don't know nothing. Definitely bad at math. So I've been leading worship for a long time. I'm not gonna do the math, but you guys are smarter than me. I'm 33, I started when I was 14. So whatever that means, someone tell me afterward. 19, that's a long freaking time. That's probably as old as most of y'all are in this room. Well, maybe not. Staring around the demographic now. I got guys looking at me like, who do you think I am? Do you not see this gray, man? I got grays too now, it's getting wild, man. So you know, I've been leading worship for a long time. And like I said, we often think it's just like, oh, I'm going to the next level, man. It's just all up. And last year, like I said, it just felt like holy smokes. Everything exploded. All the invitations, I remember this year, I'm just gonna brag on myself for a sec because I'm freaking awesome. Chris Tomlin shot me a text and he was like, hey, we're doing the thing that they just did, Good Friday or something in Nashville. And I remember I looked at Anna when I got that text and I was like, oh my gosh, babe. Like I didn't have his number, he just texted me out of the blue. It was not like I was boys with him or anything. You know, we've talked and we've done some different things together, but all of a sudden, hey, this is Chris Tomlin. We're doing Good Friday at some big thing in Nashville. Like I'd love it if you join me and Pat Barrett. And I was like, what the crap? Like who's pranking me? Like whose number do I not have that's pranking me right now? You know, and I kind of like showed Anna and I was like, babe, like we've gotta say yes to this, right? Like I know this is our sabbatical year and I told you I'm not traveling at all and I told my kids I'm not traveling at all, but this has gotta be the exception, right? Like it's Tomlin, like he's the dude, right? And I remember thinking in that moment, I am an idiot. You know, like I'm immediately trying to say no to what I already said yes to before the Lord because something cool happened. And that happened like over and over and over all these huge things that I really wanted to say yes to. And the Lord was like, you made a decision with your wife and before your family that you would not do anything this year and it's vital to your family and to your own soul that you continue to say yes to it. So we're in the middle, almost the middle of that year of sabbatical where zero travel, I'm going stir crazy. I don't know what the heck to do with myself at home. Like it's weird cause I'm trying to draw this line between daddy's home all the time. Now I got three kids, obviously one more on the way and they don't understand like daddy's home a lot but he's supposed to be actually like writing, studying, doing stuff that's productive but they'll see me in the piano room. Like I'm just, I'm pounding out a song. Like I'm in the middle of it like feeling the Lord like I'm going there and all of a sudden river just comes in, dad, that baby. She doesn't understand like daddy's working right now because I'm at home, she doesn't get that. So we're trying to figure out what that looks like but it's all about surrender. It's all about laying your life before the Lord and going do whatever the heck you want. It doesn't matter what I thought, it doesn't matter what I felt it was supposed to be like but do whatever the heck you want Lord. Lay me on the altar. So I'm learning how to enjoy the process. And I'm a destination guy. Like I want to get there and I want to get there fast. Like how many of you guys are the same? Like on a road trip, you guys like you look at your, I got an iPhone, if you have an Android just leave it, just leave now. Like I don't want your green texts. I don't want your lack of eye message. Like, sorry, I'm kidding. I'm totally kidding. I'm surrendering to y'all as well. Your lack of wisdom. You know, when you're looking at your maps and you're on your way, we just took a long road trip. We went to Dallas from here, which I think was like 17 hours or something crazy like that. Thank God we broke it into like four days because that would have gone insane. We stayed at a different place each night but you know, I'm looking at my maps and I'm like, it says I'm gonna get there at 7 p.m. I'm getting that down to 6.30, easy. And then all of a sudden I'm at 6.30, 6 p.m. We're going down like I'm making up time. The kids are like, I have to pee. I'm like, you shut your mouth. We're not going anywhere. Sit your butt in that car, pee your pants if you have to. I don't care, I already have. Like, follow my lead here. You know, like, that's my usual MO and it's really tough for me to not live that way. Just super driven, that's the way I am, that's the way my dad was. And so I learned that and now I'm trying to unlearn that. And I'm trying to actually begin to enjoy the process, see my wife on a road trip, she loves it. I am bored out of my flippin' mind. But she's like, oh, it's the conversation and like the mountains and the leaves and the trees, you know, as we're walking or as we're driving. And I'm like, I hate this, like I'm going insane. I don't know what to do. I can't even listen to a podcast because my kids have a DVD coming through the fricking speakers. Thank you, Ryan. My God, he got us a Tahoe that's totally fire. So, you know, but I didn't know what to do with myself but Anna's like, I love this, it's slow. We're just enjoying each other's presence. We're enjoying tying together. It's so fun. And I'm like, I don't know how you do this. I'm going insane. But this year, I'm learning how to enjoy the process. And I'm learning this phrase has been really touching me, the Lord keeps speaking to me, you're not behind. You're not behind, Corey. And in my mind, it's almost like I always see like an hourglass, you know, the things filled with sand. And it's almost like I see someone, they flip that hourglass and they're looking at me like, what are you going to do? Like, sand's running out. Like, I like to talk about like in worship leader years. How many of you guys are worship leaders? Okay, good, good, good. Solid demographic, the anointed ones. You know, in worship leaders, if you're like 33 like me and it's kind of like dog years, you're basically 90 at this point. Like you're over the hill. You're about to croak. You can't walk anymore. Like it's wild at this point. Like if you can get out of your cage to pee, you're doing well, you know? To me, it's the worship leaders are very similar to that in a lot of ways. And so I'm trying to learn that there is not an hourglass somewhere that's running at a time for my life, for my production, for my songs, for my teaching abilities, for my worship leading, all these things, there's nothing like that. And the Lord's saying you're not behind. Enjoy the process. Enjoy the time. Surrender to the slowness of life. And something that my wife is brilliant and is always showing me these incredible teachings. You guys know Jonathan and Melissa Hellser. They wrote No Longer Slaves. That's probably how you'd know them. This is kind of off topic, but it's been really blasting me the past couple of days. And Johnny talks about how as children we were all artists. No one had told us to fear what people thought. No one had told us to fear what the final product might look like and what the critique might be from the people out there. We were all artists. We drew what we wanted to. We painted what we wanted to. And it didn't matter how long it took. It didn't matter how slow we went. It was about enjoying it. And we didn't care what anyone thought at the end. And that's how I'm trying to learn to live my life. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks. I've had so many people tell me you took a year off. Like, are you an idiot? Like that doesn't make any sense. All the industry people screaming at me. You know, you better go hard, man. This is your time. Strike while the iron's hot. This isn't gonna happen again, man. This is a unique season. You better do it. And what I've found is the foolishness of the cross confounds the wisdom of the world. The foolishness of the cross says, lay it down. Die to it. It does not matter. The Lord will resurrect what He needs to resurrect and He'll resurrect it in His own strength, not in your own. You won't have to maintain it. You won't have to do it yourself. And so, you know, it's that first Corinthians passage that it is the foolishness of God that confounds the wisdom of the world or the wisdom of men. Everyone said to me, don't do it. Don't take the year off. This is the most healthy my heart has ever been. This is the most healthy our marriage has ever been. This is the most healthy our kids have ever been. And it's because Daddy chose to give up what he always wanted to get what he knew he actually needed, you know? And I imagine, you know, if I didn't take some of those steps and some of that path, I'd look at my life in five years and potentially not be together with my wife. Having a strange relationship with my kids because I ran hard and I did what everyone told me to do. All of a sudden I'll look back in five years and think, oh my gosh, I traveled, I did a ton. I made a lot of awesome records and songs and I made a lot of money. But I'll tell you what, none of that matters in comparison to what I'm going to gain in this season. So hopefully I can convey some of those ideas to you in whatever time we have left, 11, 20. So it's the process. It's not about the destination. It's the drive to the destination, like Anna loves. It's, you know, for me, I've been loving cooking lately. And you guys love cooking. I don't know why. It's like, it's therapeutic to me all of a sudden. I really only cook meat though, if I'm honest. Like all the rest of it I don't really care about it. Like whatever, cauliflower, nah, I'm good. Steak, ribeye, 100%, reverse sear. Oh Jesus, talk to me. I've been doing intermittent fasting so I haven't eaten today. You're probably gonna hear a bit more about food today. But shopping and preparing for the meal. I'm starting to find enjoyment in it. You know, I'm going to the store and finding these amazing cuts of meat. And sometimes maybe even a vegetable or two, who knows. But really enjoying that time, knowing that it's the preparation that's gonna make the meal absolutely incredible. Thinking about having people over to my house, like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna present this to them. They're gonna be super fired up. If I was on Instagram still, I'd be, you know, Instagram store in and live in it and stuff. And I hope to start a cooking channel when I come back to social media next year. Cory's cooking, I think it could be kind of fiery. So we'll see. This is, hopefully there's not too many young or unmarried people, but let me tell you, the acts of kindness, men, before what may potentially happen that evening. You guys know what I'm talking about. Everyone kind of went like, this guy. I knew he was an idiot, but now he's confirmed it. That stuff matters, it's the preparation. The shopping, you know, we did the Grammys back a little bit, but the girls like Anna and Caleb, I'm sure most of you guys know Caleb. Caleb's wife is Rachel and she led with me this morning. She's incredible. But those girls went in on the outfits, you know, like they took months in preparation for what they wanted to look like and how beautiful they were gonna look. And they enjoyed it. If it was me, I'd have been like, Anna would ask me, like, what do you think about this one? I don't care, like, do what makes you happy, you know? Like, you're gonna look awesome no matter what, but it meant something to her to prepare correctly to get to the place where she was gonna feel beautiful, you know, presenting herself with me at this place. And there's something special about that. I could care less about it, but there's something special about it. You know, it's even, I'm thinking of, you know, the song, Reckless Love and different songs that I've written, it's the actual life experience before that song happens is invaluable. You can't trade that for the world. And I think so many of us, we wanna speed up the process and we wanna get the McDonald's version of the song. And I'll tell you what, the McDonald's version of the song pales in comparison to whatever the nicest steakhouse you could possibly imagine is. And it takes longer for sure. It's way more difficult for sure, but I'll tell you what, you're going to want to take the time to get the right product. And so that life experience before, don't despise that, especially you young people in the room, don't despise that, thinking, you know, I just gotta release something, I gotta get this out to the world. No, no, no, no, live your life, let God talk to you through what you go through. When you're processing things, when you're experiencing life, let him speak to you. And that's the place that that song's gonna come out. You know, I think of a diamond, right? Like it's in the middle of the earth, extreme pressure, extreme heat, and all of a sudden this thing of beauty is born. And even when it comes out, you would think like, oh, it took all this time to get made. Like it's gotta look awesome now, right? And it comes out and it still doesn't look good. They gotta do all this work on it and chip away all the junk. And then you gotta set it in the right context, you know, a ring or a diamond pendant for it to actually sit, right? There's all this time that has to take place for you to get to this place of beauty. So don't despise those years of preparation, especially you young people. Don't force it. Don't kick open a door that's not open yet. Because like I said earlier, when we do that, you're gonna find that you have to maintain in your own strength what you created in your own strength, you know? And we think like, man, I'm gonna kick this door down and it's gonna be incredible. And then you're gonna find out it's actually terrible. You're gonna get this elevation of platform or whatever it might look like, but it wasn't the Lord that opened the door. So you're gonna have to keep holding it open to stay in that place. But if you let the Lord do what he wants in that process, man, it's so much easier. I've said it a lot lately. He's way better at fighting for us than we are at fighting for ourselves. There's a, I found that there's something seemingly unnatural in just about every process and something that to man's eye, like it just doesn't seem right, you know? It doesn't seem like that's the way it should look. It's backwards or it's counterintuitive or it's weird, you know, thinking of the crushing before the anointing oil, right? You know, you're taking this olive and there's all these processes and things that have to happen to this olive to actually produce the oil. It's not like you're just like, squish it with my bare hand, my left hand, even my off hand. It's like, oh, there's all the oil. No, it takes like this gigantic hydraulic press and it takes time to refine this thing. You know, the years of curing before a good cheese, how many of you like good cheese, right? Cheese is freaking amazing. I don't know why it is, it's just amazing. It's like nasty rotting stuff on a, like an Italian basement, like here, what is that? Why does that work? Like they wrap it in the nastiest looking junk and after 30 years they're like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. I feel like that's like our lives, right? Like you just wrap us in the nastiest junk. Somehow we sit in a basement for 30 years and, right? How many of you guys hate hiddenness? It's like, I've been hidden my whole life, why God, why? And it's the crucible of time and it really does prove things. It's that place of fire that proves and refines and the cheese all of a sudden after 30 years, you peel back that nasty moldy looking junk and it still smells terrible, but it tastes great. Like I don't know why, but that's the way it works. And then you pair it with some wine that's fermented for 20 years. I'll tell you what, that's a special experience right there. How many of you guys are under 21? Okay, don't try to experience that yet guys, all right? I made that mistake, don't do it. You know, it's John 12, 24. I hate this verse, but I love it. I found that like all my life verses are the ones that I really hated but the ones that I really wrestled with and now I love them. So John 12, 24, it says, "'Lest the seed fall into the ground, it remains alone." But if it dies, it bears much fruit. And I love that, because it's completely backwards. It's what Misty Edwards, she's from the International House of Prayer. She used to call it the inside, outside, upside down kingdom. And that's exactly what it is, where you lose to gain and you die to live. That's the kingdom of God. That's how it actually works. You give something up and he puts something in your hand. And I think so much of it is like, would you give it up? With this baby of ours who's kind of marinating in the womb right now, I guess. I think he's the size of like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup or something. I love those, so I'm happy about that. Those are my favorite. You know, this baby was actually, I know the exact moment. It's gonna sound weird, but conceived on our sabbatical in March when we went to Dallas. I'll give you more detail on that later if you want. And I was like, please don't. It was conceived during our sabbatical in Dallas where we took a full month and just said, Lord, what is it that we're doing? And we expected to be on the sabbatical for four weeks and just get every answer that we ever wanted, marching orders for our lives and just move out in the strength of the kingdom of God. And it was so weird because God was like, hey, chill, bro. I'm not giving you every answer you ever wanted. You're gonna sit here for four weeks in agony, wondering when I'm going to speak. And then literally the last two days, I'm gonna lay something on you. But guess what? It's not gonna be anywhere near what you thought it was gonna be. You're not gonna get marching orders. You're still going to wait. But you're gonna wait with a little more purpose. You know, I don't know how life is. And so this baby is conceived during our sabbatical had a little extra time on her hands. And I love making people awkward. It's the beauty of marriage, right? So before we left, Pastor Lee, who you heard from this morning, incredible man of God, he prophesied over an enemy as they were kind of sending us out to this little season. And he began to prophesy an Isaac season, a season of laughter, speaking specifically of the sabbatical. And I didn't think anything of it. I was like, totally, I love laughing. Like it's fun. I'm gonna watch some funny movies. I'm gonna have a good time and watch some stupid vines, which I totally enjoy. And I'm gonna laugh my head off. You know, I'm gonna enjoy time with my kids by the lake and running with our dog Sherlock. And it's gonna be incredible. And Anna told me afterward, once we knew we were pregnant, she goes, as soon as Lee said that, she goes, I knew exactly what it meant. And in my heart, I grieved and rejoiced at the same time. She's like, I knew it meant that I was getting pregnant. And this boy would be full of laughter. It would bring joy to our lives, the revival of joy into our lives. She didn't tell me until after she was actually pregnant because, you know, I don't know why. But when she told me the day we were still in Dallas, I wept, I mean, I just lost it. I could not believe how full of joy and life, and we just laughed together. As a family, and what I realized, there's so much more to that Isaac thing because we're talking about surrender. What did Abraham do with Isaac? He took that sucker up to the mountain of worship, didn't he? And Isaac was like, here we go, here we go, dad. Like, this is gonna be great. And Abraham's like, yes, yes it is, my son. You know, and can you imagine that scene where God says to Abraham, literally this is the promise that God gave Abraham before was you will have children like the stars in the sky, numerous children, too many to count, right? And so Isaac comes and Abraham's gotta be thinking this is the beginning, this is the first fruits of the promise. And then all of a sudden the father goes, would you give it up? Would you give up what I promised you? The very thing that you've been wanting and pining for for decades, you didn't think your wife could do it. Would you give it up? Who knows if I'll give you another one? But I made you a promise, didn't I? Are you willing to actually believe the promise? Are you not? And so I can imagine Abraham bringing Isaac up that mountain. Can you fathom what that felt like? He was going to kill the very promise that God had given him because he still believed that God was faithful to do it another way. I'm sure he had no understanding of what it looked like. And I realized that Isaac's season that Lee prophesied was so much more than just laughter. It was laughter through sacrifice. It was a laughter through giving up everything. It was a deep, abiding joy that you could not find any other way than full surrender to the will and love of God. That was the only way I knew that we could find it. So I realized, oh my gosh, I sacrificed everything I ever, will you give me just a touch less on this, Caleb? I sacrificed everything literally that I had ever wanted. Like I've dreamed about this since I was a kid, and my boy Tomlin hits me up and I gotta say no. So I laid it all down and the Lord's like, and guess what? I'm gonna give you joy like you've never known within your family because that's way more important than anything ever could be. It's way better than a stage. It's way better than lights and people and all the stuff that we sometimes dream of. We always think like, lest the seed falls into the ground and dies, right? And we think like, well, that seed carries life. Like why would I put that thing into the ground? I've gotta protect this. I've gotta hold on to this thing at all costs. This is the promise. How could I sew it into the ground to seed decay, corruption, death? That doesn't make any sense to our finite minds and yet that's what the Lord commands. If it dies, it bears much fruit. And it's not even just fruit for your own family. I believe it's fruit for your church, for your city, for the nation. Who knows whether you guys in this room will write a song that will change a generation, that will rewrite the understanding of God in a generation. Who knows if you bury that seed, all of a sudden could it rise up like an oak like you never imagined and actually provide shade and fruit for someone else, not even just you, not even just your family, not even just your own congregation. You put that thing into the ground and it rises up and it provides shade and fruit for a massive number of people. Who knows? Who knows what that could look like? But we think, you know, it's not mature. It's not full grown. I gotta hold on to it. But the Lord's saying put it into the ground. I wanna mature it. I wanna grow it up, but you've gotta die to it first. I love Matthew 16, 24. Again, one of those terrible verses we've been referencing this morning, but if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it and whoever would lose his life for me will find it. I love that verse. It sucks, but I love that verse. That's what Jesus did. He didn't take himself off the cross when he could have. He didn't command his angels to come. Ah, this kind of sucks. Like get me down. I would have guaranteed that, but he didn't. And it was for the joy set before him. I love Ephesians 3. We prayed it over and over and over and over again at the house of prayer in Kansas City where I kinda grew up in the Lord really. And it's this verses Ephesians 3, 16 through 19 where Paul, you know, this incredible apostle, he prays for a divine strengthening of might on the inner man. And how many of us think like, oh, well I've prayed for the divine strengthening of might. Like I'm just gonna all of a sudden have it and walk in it. Excuse me, and it's almost like this McDonald's idea. Like I prayed for it, I've got it now, right? But the picture there with that word, it's a Hebrew word. I don't know how to actually pronounce it, but it looks like kriteo, C-R-E-T-E-O. The picture is actually like building a muscle. So it's a tearing down, a tearing down, a tearing apart, a ripping apart, and then the building back on top of that. That's what Paul's actually praying to the church of Ephesus, that they would have a divine strengthening of might. What he means is that they would be torn down, that they would be ripped apart like a muscle. How many of you guys know that working out totally sucks? It's terrible. Like do any of you guys actually like it? Like when you're getting ready, you're lying to me. Are you lying? She's not lying. She's the anomaly, beloved. She's the only one in this room. He said yes to you, but I think he's lying too. I'm kidding. You know, it's not fun, right? Like, I don't know what joy you find it. I'm confused by both of you now. Like your proximity is too close to me. I need to like move over here. It's difficult when you gotta wake up in the morning and you're trying to go before work. Like that's not fun, right? You get to the gym and you're grinding and you're doing all this weird stuff and like if you're anything like me, you just look like a moron doing it. Like I'm on the different machines, like the ones that are supposed to go like this and I'm doing curls on it. Like this is right, right? And people are just like videoing me. You are a moron. You know, but it's this idea of a tearing down and then an actual building back up. That's the way that we're strengthened with divine might on the inner man. It's actually through trials. It's difficult. The muscle has to rip in order to grow. That's the way it works. Like I don't have a whole lot so like I can't speak from a ton of experience but at one point I had a little bit of like a tiny muscle and I knew what it felt like to work out. But it's a process. It's slow and painful working out. It's like not fun, you know? But that's what Paul is actually talking about. And I love James one as well. I hate it, but I love it. I keep saying that. James one, beloved brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. The testing of my faith produces patience. You would think that the Lord could just like issue a download. You could like pay enough money. It's like an upgrade on a video game. Like, well, I got enough coins and like here comes my download. You know, like apparently no video gamers in this entire room. My guy back here. Yes, okay. Gabriel, video games? Yeah, yeah. Kids addicted, please God. Touch the spirit. It's, you would think it's like an upgrade that like, okay, I've put in the time, right? Like I'm gonna get the upgrade and worship leader skills. I'm like gonna go from a five to a six and the annoying thing's gonna increase all of a sudden. And the truth is that's just not how it works at all. We have to embrace that process. And I've found that we love control as well. Like, do you guys love control? I'm a control freak in a lot of ways. I'm eight on the enneagram. So I'm just manipulating people into stuff and just bowling them over, man, you know? You guys are like, oh, this guy really is a terrible person. Like he keeps saying it, but he keeps corroborating it with his own words. I love control, but the Lord keeps speaking to me, especially this year. Control is based out of fear. I am so afraid of things getting out of my hands. I want to manipulate them the way that I want to manipulate them to where I'm running the puppet master strings and I can say where we go, what we do, because I'm afraid that God's gonna screw it up for me. Right? If I'm honest, like that's what I actually believe. My life is easy. It's comfortable. I got some money. I got a great family. God's gonna screw it up for me. And then he does. And I'm like, this is the best thing that he could have ever done. I thought that I want to comfort and ease and the Lord was like, I'm gonna shake you out of that lethargy. I'm gonna shake you out of that slumber and you're gonna still come after me because I did it. That's how kind I am. That's how good I am. Surrender though is based out of trust. A deep seated trust. It can be to a family member, to a spouse, a husband, a wife. When you actually surrender is because you trust that person with your life, your well-being, the goodness of what's around you. Right? And they are diametric opposites. They don't work. If you're still controlling everything around you is because you're still afraid that God or the universe or like, what's with the universe stuff? Like, what is that? Can someone afterward will connect on that. We're afraid that the Lord's gonna screw it up because deep down we truly believe that He's not kind. We truly believe that He's not good, you know? And we've got to wrestle with that thought and get to the place where He's taken everything maybe and we can actually let go and surrender and fully trust what He has for us, what He's gonna do in our lives, whether it looks the way that we thought it would or not. I remember, you know, with this record process, we released this album, Reckless Love. It was last January of 2018. And I mean, I had been writing songs. I didn't release a record for nine years up to that point. And I had been writing songs and grinding in the secret place with the Lord and just saying yes to everything that He was saying to me when it was difficult or not. And I remember, I kept thinking like, Lord, when is it gonna happen? And then Bethel Music comes along and they're like, hey, we want you to join the label. I was in the process of doing a record at that point. And they said, no, no, no, hold off on that because we want you to do it through Bethel Music. We want you to do it through us. We're gonna provide the funding, the producer, the whole thing, it's gonna be amazing and it's gonna happen super quickly after you sign. And I was like, dude, Frank, awesome. I don't have to do a Kickstarter. There's rules, like I hate doing Kickstarter's. And I was super happy about it. And then all of a sudden two years goes by and I cannot tell you how many email drafts I had written up to Joel and Brian of Bethel Music. Hey guys, what the heck is going on? Probably slightly more intense language than that. But like, what is happening? You promised me this. I keep grinding, I'm writing, I'm writing, I'm writing. You keep telling me to go back to the drawing board. At this point, I had had five different recording dates in Nashville. They told me five different times, different dates that I was going to actually record. Each time I put it in my calendar, I got really excited with Anna and the kids. We were fired up. We had little joy sessions of thank you before the Lord. And each time it didn't happen. And I was just like, what the heck is going on? Like, I expected it to look a certain way because I had put in the time, the energy, right? And the Lord kept saying, not now. I want to show you that I actually fight for you. That you don't need to take this into your own hands. So each time I'd write that email, the Lord would say, okay, you wrote it, now delete it. You got it out. You got it out of your spirit, delete it. Don't send it. Thank God I never sent any of those because I probably wouldn't still be with the label. You know, but he kept saying, die to that. Die to that dream. Die to that ambition. And if I'm really honest with you, and I value vulnerability, my personality, I just, I love it. I love honesty. I hate BS. It drives me insane. It wasn't until about six months before we started recording that I went to a retreat with my wife and Caleb and Rachel out at Jonathan and Melissa Hellster's place in North Carolina. And the Lord brought me to the real issue. And I realized with their help that the reason I wanted to release an album full of songs is because I wanted to prove to the world that I was good enough. I wanted to prove to the world that I was smart enough to write songs, that I was poetic enough to write songs, that I had something to say. It was all about proving who I was. And it was to people because I believed that the Lord didn't think I was good enough. I believe that the father was looking at me like, ah, you're not quite ready, Peewee. Like maybe in a couple years, you'll get it, you know? And probably that was true. But that's really half, truly 50% of my motivation was like, I've gotta prove that I've still got something to say. And in that time at the Hellster's farm, the Lord spoke and was like, I want you to give that up. And I was just perfectly honest with him for the first time in my life. And I was like, I lay all of that down. I'm sorry, I repent. I turn away from that idea. You're the only one that validates me. You're the only one that can say whether I'm good enough, smart enough, big enough, fast enough, you know? And so much of it came from my dad. The way that my dad looked at me, it was like, you're not big enough, you're not strong enough, you're not athletic enough. And I always wanted to prove to him that I was. And so the same with my father in heaven, I wanted to prove to him that I was good enough. And finally he said, stop, I adore you. You're my boy. I've always loved you back when you were an idiot or not. Like it didn't matter. I've always loved you. And back when I was an idiot, I'm speaking of currently. You know, I've always absolutely adored you. You are my son. I know you mess up. I know you have faults. I know you have tons of failures. But guess what? I don't care. Keep turning to me, keep repenting. So I surrendered all that and literally right after that, like reckless love, the whole song, bam, was there. And that had been the theme, you know that line, overwhelming never ending, reckless love of God. It was like, that was what the Lord was speaking to me. Tons, tons, tons, tons, tons, tons. Like that was the theme of the season. I couldn't get away from it, those lyrics. I had no idea what they were gonna be. I didn't know they were gonna be a song. But the Lord all of a sudden one night, literally after that, he just downloaded the whole melody, the whole idea for the song, literally at like 3 a.m. I remember singing it into my iPhone so late at night. I went back the next morning. I could barely tell what I sang, you know. I didn't wanna wake up and I went into the closet and there's like white noise and it was crazy. But somehow I deciphered a few notes out of it and bam, went to the piano, grabbed Caleb and then we hammered it out very, very quickly. And it was like, the Lord was like, okay, finally. You're kinda ready. And now this year, I'm like, I wasn't ready at all. Like, she wasn't ready. Like, that's what I'm realizing. And again, that's the Lord's kindness. It's almost like he turns up the magnifying glass on your life and it's funny, like before marriage, you think you're super holy, right? It's like, I am the most godly man on the face of the planet. And I remember then I got married and I was like, I am a worm, I am no man. And the Lord's so kind to show you that. And then all of a sudden you have kids. And I remember I told Anna right before we had kids, I was like, babe, I'm the most humble man I know. And I'm telling you, I was dead serious. Dead freaking serious. I was not joking. I'm not kidding you. I was not joking at all. I believe that. I had done like two good things in my whole life. I'm for real, dude. I'm 100%, I'm not kidding at all. I had done like one really kind thing for my wife the day before. I was like, oh my God, like I have attained. Like what happened in one day? I literally reached the third heaven. I am walking on a spiritual, like I'm on the streets of gold. Like what happened? I said that to her and she goes, oh babe, you are going to regret that. Cause she knew I was in for just the fall of my life. Not only did we get in a massive fight like that night. I realized what a tool bag I was, like a tool shed. Like maybe even like, minards. I was all of minards, you know? It was the greatest wake up call. And the Lord's so kind. Again, it's like, he goes like, oh, you're so sweet. And then he's just like, 10 times on the magnifying glass and you look at the Petri dish is like, holy smokes. There's so much nastiness on that one tiny little molecule. Like, oh my gosh. And he keeps doing that. That's the goodness of God that he keeps doing that. He doesn't leave us where we're at. He doesn't leave us stuck in whatever it is. He keeps going, and then he goes, are you going to say yes to me? Are you going to walk toward me? Are you going to walk up the mountain? Literally the first time the word worship and praise was used was that Isaac and, and hold on. Abraham and, oh my God, I almost said Isaac and Jacob. I was like, what happened? Abraham and Isaac moment. That was worship to God. That's the first time it's used in the canon of scripture. It was surrender. It was giving it all up. Like, is that not amazing? So he's so good to keep doing that. How long do I have? Holy smokes. I don't even know what I've said so far. I think the same thing and just like 50 different lenses. Embrace the process. Even the Son of God fully submitted to the process. He didn't shirk it. He didn't swerve it. He didn't try to get around it, you know? Even Satan comes along, he offers Jesus basically a get out of jail free card, right? Like, hey, worship me and you don't have to do any of this, I'll still give you the worship of the nations. I'll still give you all the stuff that you ever wanted, right? The inheritance that's before you. Don't even worry about the cross. Don't sweat that, you don't need that. You just bow down and worship me and I'll give it to you. And Jesus answers him with the word of God. He embraces the process and he goes, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm gonna do. And he commands, you know, this awesome scene and I'm sure it was really fun, whatever. But Jesus goes, no, and he embraces the process. He combats that lie with the word of God, says no and embraces the process. That's incredible. Even the Son of God said yes to it. I love the story of Joseph. And I really resonate with it in a lot of ways. And, you know, when Joseph is this young kid and I imagine myself quite like Joseph and he's the favorite of his dad and he gets this awesome coat of many colors and dang it, I'm not wearing it today. I got this one that kind of looks like it. I think I meant to wear it. And it was 6.45 this morning when I got up and I was like, what's on the ground? This, okay, here we go. But Joseph, he's such a moron. Like the Lord speaks this beautiful promise of truth over him because like you're my favorite, man. I see, he sees in this dream all of his brothers bowing down to him. And what does the idiot do? Hello, hi, God. He goes to his brothers and he goes, I had a dream last night. Like I could so see myself doing that with my friends. They're all like, we already know this guy is an arrogant jerk, but now he's got a dream from God that tells him we're all going to bow down to him. So Joseph has the audacity to actually say it to his brothers in arrogance. Who knows whether he was arrogant or not, he was. But he says this stuff to his brothers and then his brothers hate him. He goes, his brothers, every time he comes around, here comes the dreamer. Here comes this dude up in the clouds, flying high, never on the ground of no earthly good. The guy thinks he's incredible. He's going to change the world. We're all going to bow to him. Here comes this dreamer, right? And I hope that we're all dreamers. But that was the birth of haters in the Bible. Like that was it right there. His brothers were haters. Haters are fun. But God appeals to his arrogance through a dream, literally, with Joseph. And I imagine myself as a young person. Like God did the same exact thing. And probably many of us in the room are like, yeah, like he did the same thing with me. I thought I was incredible. God spoke to it. He's infinite in wisdom. Somehow he used that to turn me toward him. And now I'm actually walking in the calling that he had for me, you know? His brothers hate him so he dreams another dream. And he comes again and he says the same dream, basically. Like, what? Dude's insane. And then even in Potiphar's house, he's sold into slavery and all this stuff. You know, it was really difficult. Even in Potiphar's house, God's hand of favor is still on him. He's promoted even in a foreign land. Because the Lord's hand actually was on him. And the Lord spoke to me earlier this year. And it's so funny. Like, I wish I had that little thing. But I was reading through this passage and all of a sudden I opened my Bible and Anna had thrown all my stuff into my Bible and like stuck it under my thing because she was trying to clean the room because I'm crazy messy. I opened my Bible and it's this picture, this little drawing that Lily, our middle girl who's five, excuse me, she had drawn. And it was like every color of the rainbow, just like this. And it looked like the coat of many colors and it was in that passage. And God goes, I gave you a coat of many colors. I wrote it down because I knew I'd forget the phrase. I gave you a coat of many colors at a very young age. You were my favorite even then. Many hated you for it. They conspired to kill you, but I have been with you every step of the way. And my favor never left you. And I mean, I just freaking lost it, dude. Like just lost it. And again, it was his kindness to show up. Literally in my lack of wisdom as a kid and appeal to that, the Lord was with him, with Joseph showed him steadfast love and favor even in the sight of the prison keeper. And he delivers them. And you guys know the story. He ends up ruling Egypt and providing for his entire family in a famine. It's an incredible, incredible story. And the promise isn't that everything will be easy. Never is, that's not what the Bible said. The promise isn't that everything will be easy. It's that he'll be with us and for us even when it's hard. That's the beauty of our story is he's with us in the process. He's literally a breath away. God, I'm dealing with this. What do you think about it? How do you feel? What are your thoughts toward me in this difficulty? And bam, he downloads to you what he actually feels about you. That is incredible. That's absolutely incredible. And I've thought about all this stuff so much, but if you made a straight line to the end of your life, you know, us destination people, you make a straight line to that retirement, that beautiful place on the beach that many of us envision, and you skip the steps in between, you would literally have no story. You'd have no relationship with God, no history with him. You'd just be at the end and you'd think, oh, this is amazing, but it means nothing to you because you didn't actually dialogue with the Lord about it. That's all he cares about. He gives us the process to grow in love with him. He doesn't care about the rest. Like for me, he gave me worship leading as a tool to relate to him, and that's it. It's not about being cool or having a job. It's literally about being on the stage. He knew he would force me if I was on the stage to talk to him, and he did. Like, you can't get up here and not talk to him, like, here I am to worship, like, just kill me. I'm done, like, I can't do that. But he forced it into my hands because he knew it would be the biggest tool for relationship in my life. It would draw me to him time and time again, and he knew I would encounter my own brokenness, barrenness, emptiness, and I would keep running back to him. He knew that, and it's the greatest gift he could have given me. There'd be no laughter or tears or anything, but God is the greatest storyteller of all time, and he weaves our stories in such beautiful ways, and I imagine thinking back in eternity. You know, we're with the Father, we're with Jesus. I don't know what it's gonna be like necessarily, but can you imagine the tenderness when he recounts to you all the times that you said yes to him? You know, when he reminds you of the way that you gave up A, B, and C to have what he actually wanted for you, can you imagine the tenderness that you'll experience in that time realizing full circle what it meant, looking at it end from the beginning? Oh my gosh, when you gave me that opportunity, I said yes to it, it turned into this. You are incredible, and worship will arise from our hearts. Praise, true real worship burst forth from your heart. It's, jeez, it's amazing. So I think we're about done. Last thought, when you walk through the fire, you come out proven like gold. That's it. If you leave with anything, leave with that. Go through the fire and rejoice when it's burning fricking hot because you'll come out proven like gold. You can't get that any other way. That weight of gold on the inside that scripture talks about, you can't get that any other way. But through relationship and walking through those seasons, you know, I think of David, who's one of my heroes. Without Goliath, David was just another kid throwing stones. It was nothing, you know? All of a sudden opposition shows up and that becomes his greatest hour. He goes on to become king. It is, it truly is the foolishness of God that confounds the wise. He doesn't do it the way we think he does. And so when you're walking through a trial, when you're walking through a difficult thing, whether it's at your church, at your home, whatever it is, know that it's likely not going to look the way that you thought it was gonna look when you come out of that season. But also know that it'll be better because he's a better fighter than we are. Um, I think that's it, man. Yeah. Thanks, y'all. You guys are amazing. Let me just pray for you and then I think we'll go to lunch. Caleb will say some things. They'll be very powerful. Father, we thank you so much for your steadfast love, for your enduring kindness. In every single season, Lord, we thank you that it truly is the fire that proves our hearts like gold and we thank you that you invite us in because you actually love us. You actually care about us. You actually are interested in intimate relationship with us. Lord, we thank you that you love partnership, that you don't just do it on your own, but you invite us into the story and we get to say yes to you over and over. God, I repent right now for any time that I have not said yes or moved away or pushed you away. And right now, Father, I just say I'm willing. We're willing, God. We're surrendered to your will. We're open to what you want and what you have for us. No matter what it looks like, God, because we believe that you are good and that you're kind and you're better than we ever deserved, Lord. Thank you so much. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks, y'all.