During the past month, while I was in Thailand, God had been speaking to me a lot about how I am a creative person in some of the things that I do on a daily basis and even somethings that I don’t know I do. During those moments I felt like I should be saying things to Him like, “God how in the world am I a creative person?” and another question like “God what special skills and things do I have that make me creative?” As this blog continues I’ll show you how I got to learn about those two questions and I’ll also share an example of a story with you on how I found out that I was creative in a new way, so here we go.
I’ll begin it by saying that in the beginning of my journey last month in Bangkok, Thailand a squad mate of mine, Josh challenged me to create a song by the time we got to Malaysia. That led me thinking something like, “Okay Josh I’ll get that song written for you, it won’t be a problem.” I knew that it was going to be a time where Jesus and I were going to write the song together so I was excited.
Then towards the end of my time there my team and I met up and we decided that we were going to Nong Khai and we were going to be in a time of just trusting God with everything. As most of you all know we eventually met Sarisa and her son Joshua and while I was encouraging her with the others guys on the team I felt like I became really busy with all of the stuff we were doing there. There were times while I was there that I was working extremely hard and so I didn’t even think about creating the song at all. During those times it felt like it was something that I didn’t even want to do, but God had other plans for me.
The reason I say that is because right after I left Nong Khai we decided to go to Phuket, Thailand. While I was there I was excited for the beaches that were going to be there and one day when I was alone on one of the beaches I eventually heard God remind me of what Josh had said to me about the song and it led me to thinking to myself, “Oh gosh this isn’t good, I don’t have any of this done and I have to share it in a few days in Malaysia at the mini debrief, so I better get working on this.” So then I started looking at it again, asking Jesus to help me write it and I have to admit that at times it was hard for me because I had a time of enjoyment with the beaches and I was like, “God this can wait, I want to do some other things not that.” However, God constantly kept telling me to write the song before we met up again in Malaysia during our mini debrief session, so that I could encourage them to be creative and so I agreed to complete it. However, that is when I got kind of anxious and I felt I truly needed Jesus’s help because I felt that I had put a lot of work into it really quickly in order for me to be ready to present it.
Then to my surprise when I asked Jesus to help write it with me the song actually became easy and quick and it was amazing. It was a time where I just said to Him, “Okay I really want to write this song really well and I want it to be some words that are straight from you Lord where everything is clear and easy to understand and thank you for what you’re going to say through it.” After I spoke that out to God, I really felt like the song was able to flow in a way where I knew it would be really clear on what the message the song was trying to say and I felt really good about it. I felt like God was going to move through the words.
Then after I started writing it I found out that I had a very important decision that was going to have to be made, which was what I was going to name the song. I was saying things like, “Oh no I now know the lyrics to the song, but what should I call it?” Then after I prayed and asked God about it, He said, “Daniel what about the name of your World Race route group “Unscripted?” It led me to saying to God that “Unscripted” is a perfect name for it because it describes the type of lifestyle that we live in, which is where we fully rely on God with everything and nothing is planned until we ask God about where to go and what to do. After I found out the name I knew it was going to be a very cool thing for the group because we are currently living that way right now and I felt really good about it.
However, there were a lot of times when I wasn’t always enjoying writing the song too. An example of that is when I felt that I wasn’t getting anywhere with it and I had a lot of time where I was just siting and listening and seeing if God would provide me any insight on what He was having for me to put into it, which I sometimes felt like it took forever. Most of the time I constantly made edits to the song sometimes telling God, “Okay God I don’t want to continue this anymore because this is way too hard.” It is at those moments that you have to continue at it even though it can be hard.
However, after all of my edits and getting everything that I needed to get to help make the song sound good I came up with these lyrics to the song, which are right below here, so that you could see what it looks like. I hope you enjoy it.
The Unscripted Song:
Unscripted (pause),
Unscripted, (pause),
Sacrificing your life for Him.
Unscripted (pause),
Unscripted (pause),
Living your life to know Him.
Serving those that need Him.
Spreading some love to the ones who don’t believe in Him.
Making life all about being with Him.
Yeah that’s Unscripted (pause),
Unscripted (pause),
Yeah you should know Him (pause)
Unscripted (pause)
Living for Him (pause),
Unscripted (pause).
It’s a time when you should sit back and rewind and give everything to the one that created you.
It is always the best thing you could do.
so stop drop and roll (pause)
because you’re on fire to the one that has an intimate desire with you.
And He always wants to have a friendship with you too.
it’s a friendship that will never end (pause),
Even at the times when you try to leave Him (pause),
So dedicate your life to Him (pause),
Because with Him you’ll always be happy in the end.
So now you know about the one who created you (pause),
And about the Unscripted lifestyle too (pause),
And now you know what to do.
So then I traveled from Phuket to my mini debrief in Penang, Malaysia with the rest of the group and since I was finished with the song I decided that I wanted to present the song to them that night. However, I realized that I was having to do it on the same day without even practicing once, which I knew would be extremely hard. Knowing that, it led me to feeling that I was going to need someone to help me create the beat for it and help me make it sound good, but who was going to help me. Then something really cool happened, as I was sitting in a chair in the downstairs of the AirBnB house we were in, my Squad Leader Reece happened to walk in and I was very excited for that because he is someone who plays the guitar a lot and has been for awhile and I knew that we would sound good together even after just that one time of practicing.
So then it became the night time right after the worship session, which is where God say, “Okay Daniel it’s time to show off your creativity, so I said to Reece, “Hey Reece, let’s do this man.” Right after I said that we both played the song together and in the moment I realized that I had a great time learning about how I used my song writing to be creative for Jesus and how I got to show the group it as well. It was very encouraging to think about the things later on and it was really cool that they said that they all enjoyed it as well. It was amazing.
In fact, ever since I started writing the Unscripted song, I feel God is now telling me that I should “plan on writing more songs that will tell the others about how I am feeling in each country that I visit throughout my travels on the World Race and for me to continue to spread Jesus through all the words I’ll have you say Daniel.” So then I said to God, “Okay God I’ll try my best to show my creative songs with the others and I’m excited for this.” Then God said to me, “Okay Daniel I’m excited for this journey with you as well.” and then I said, “Me too God, me too.”
So as you all have read how I found out my creative skill, I am now going to challenge you to do something new and creative everyday that maybe you don’t think you’re good at and give it a try. Like I always say you won’t know if you’re good at it if you don’t put the effort in to try it. Also you should allow yourself to just praise Jesus through your creative minds and lifestyles because I think it’s the best way in the end. I hope you enjoyed this blog post.
