“I am the difference maker. I am the only one that speaks to Him. I am the friendliest of friends of God.”
-“Difference Maker” By NEEDTOBREATHE
As I sit here in a beautiful courtyard garden in Nicaragua my thoughts keep taking me a few weeks into the future when I will be back in America. It’s month eleven and the Race is coming to an end. While I’m super excited about seeing friends and family when I get home, there are also fears that go along with heading home. This year God has done some amazing things in me and through me. Sick people have been healed. Demons have been cast out. People have accepted Christ. People have been baptized. Squadmates have found freedom from bondage in their lives. I have seen times where my fears have been cast aside and replaced by boldness. All of these are truly amazing things and all of them are 100% God’s doing. My fear is that, when I get home, the pride that is constantly lurking will slip in and I will be drawn to take some of the glory that should go to God alone and focus toward myself.
This is a struggle that all Christians face. Pride was the original sin and is the root of all other sin. It was Lucifer’s pride that caused him to challenge God. It was Adam’s pride that caused him to listen to the serpent and bite into the apple. It is everywhere and it is the primary lie that the enemy speaks to draw us away from the Father. The scary thing is that the more mature in our faith we get and the more of God’s gifts we receive, the more vulnerable we are to buying into that lie. The enemy tells us that we are walking with God and operating in the gifts that He has given us, so we must be something special. He tells us that God must love us more than others. We start to believe that we must have done something to deserve the good gifts the Father has given us.
I don’t want to buy into that lie though. I am just a broken vessel that God has shown grace to. I have done absolutely nothing to deserve this crazy awesome life God has called me to. When it boils down to it, I’m just a guy like any other guy. All of what I have seen and all of the “good things” I have done this year are 100% Him.
I know that the struggle is coming though. It is common for World Racers and other missionaries to slip into pride when they get home because so many people want to hear the stories and they get so much attention. People are going to want to hear the stories, and there is nothing wrong with that. Of course people want to hear about what God is doing around the world. It’s exciting. Testimonies are life affirming. I truly believe that it is my responsibility to share what I have seen God do with whoever will listen. The struggle is internal. The struggle is shutting out the enemy’s voice. I didn’t cast out any demons. God did. I was just blessed to be there when He chose to do that work in someone’s life. Any of the times that I have spoken with boldness and wisdom in a Nicaraguan jail or on a street corner have been from Him and not from me. On my own I’m not wise or bold. The same thing goes for healing. It was Him, not me. He is the Healer. I am the guy with the cool redemptive testimony with the miracle in it, but it was God who changed my life, not me. I could keep going, but you get the point. When John the Baptist is speaking to his disciples about Jesus, he says “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30) This is something that I hope to keep reminding myself. The world needs a whole lot less of me and a whole lot more of Him.
While I have been on the Race I have been introduced to a band called NEEDTOBREATHE and have been listening to them a lot. There is a song on there new album called “Difference Maker”. They wrote this song to talk about how they got ahead of themselves as a band because they were touring with Taylor Swift and performing in front of tens of thousands of people each night. They are a Christian band who was given the opportunity to reach more people with their music than most bands ever will. Pride snuck in and what they intended for good almost destroyed their band. They bought into all of the adoration they were receiving from their fans and the Christian community. Now they have turned from that and refocused their priorities and the band is doing great. They are still playing for huge crowds, but they have simple been intentional about giving all of the glory to God. I came across this song while I was struggling through my own pride issues. I read an interview with their lead singer to find out what the song meant to the band when they wrote it. I usually don’t spend a lot of time learning about the lives of the people in the bands I listen to (or even sometimes know the names of the band members) because I honestly just don’t care enough to do the research or buy the magazines. I feel like God led me to read this particular story about this particular song because there is a lesson in there that I can learn from. I think it is an important lesson that I hope to continue learning from. Below is a link to the music video for the song “Difference Maker”. My prayer is that through this lesson I have been learning others will also get something out of it that will draw them closer to the Lord. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. Love Y’all!!!
