I read where several millionaires were interviewed. they had one thing in common. they’d all gone through roughly 16 failures before finding something successful. I think about that everyday. I’m not sure why a fire has been lit under me in the last few months. Maybe watching my father deteriorate and a few friends struggling for the lives. Maybe the serious down turn in the economy too has made me realize Nothing is permanent! I’m more aware of my life on the conveyor belt. feels like it’s pickin up speed too. That said. I’m following my passions, you’d think they’d be all deeply religious insights and song material. Well not so much.

I wrote a song for the Sugar Caddies club dates yesterday called “it didn’t work out”. roughly inspired by the idea that 16 things might fail before something good happens. it’s monstrously funny! but not remotely “spiritual’ from the outside looking in. And then I think about the books I’m having success with now. All sarcastic humor! I’m loving every minute that I’m awake these days. and yet even in my own eyes I don’t recognize myself in a defined ministry.

I’m simply going where I’m drawn. maybe that comes with a removal of silly definitions of “ministry”. I don’t know. My influence has not gone where I might have thought. You can write down a mission statement on paper and make it look significant. But I sometimes wonder if it’s just a definition we etch to make ourselves feel more important.

Oswald tells me “the more in line with God’s purposes one becomes the more vague it seems from a human perspective”. Well there’s some comfort for my uncomfortable vagaries. I don’t know why I’m going where I am these days. I attempted doing the club dates with the NehoSoul Band and we were suspect because of my background in Christian Music. I was Labeled as “one of those people” . And so I thought I would be playing back in the old world. and still the doors open to this new entity again to ‘be anonymous” and play in local clubs. I’m happy to do it. it might be failure number 13 on the way to finding what works. but it’s hard to look at it that way.

All I know is that when we’re playing these tunes I don’t notice that I’ve been singing for eight hours and then going home to my wife and playing the guitar for her… makin up new tunes!

Here’s where the new trust comes into play…. k So … there’s that!

I can’t sleep tonight. My prayers are for hope and strength to trust God with what I cannot see. Lately there’s a fog about the future so close to my face that it has slowed my pace to a crawl. Afraid of a misstep, I become slow to respond to opportunities. There are cracks in the foundation of my optimism. I encourage myself, read words of wisdom and look for insight. But all around me are the flares in the darkness from others who are ahead of me on the road. Gone are they who say, take courage. The words have changed to: “be careful, be prudent” and now from so many: “brace yourself for impact”.

Laughter is dwindling to silence. Fear stirs from somewhere I’ve never been in my own soul. It flushes me with weakness. My heart is racing.  I have a sense that I have forgotten something most important. It feels like a realization that I am poorly prepared for some impending situation. “you cannot work hard enough to save yourself” said a friend to me two days ago.

My striving is not to save myself but to stay my fears until God somehow intervenes. And all I hear is “not yet”. And no answer then again to “If not now when?” . How long oh lord? I ask. And it is as though I’ve just begun the initiation. I tremble at the thought of what I cannot believe with all my strength. I have nothing that God did not give me and still has he left me feeling ill equipped.

A friend and I had a discussion about DL Moody deciding he wanted to know what it felt like to “surrender all to Jesus”. “I don’t know how you’d do that in a single decision” I said “even once made is quickly rescinded”. “I think there must be desperation of soul to make a decision of that kind” I said with the wave of my hand. That decision has seldom been made by those who love any aspect of life. Could it be that my love could make me lost? Is love being too soft? Could those feelings of love make me choose the less difficult way? Thinking all along it was right? Denial is a deception one cannot lead himself out of.

“Fewer on this planet believe in the existence of Satan” he responded. “Then perhaps Satan himself is doing a fine job” I suggested. “I don’t spend my time looking for evil” I thought out loud “evil knows right where I am, just as much as God himself does”. I survive one day at a time with the words of the serenity prayer: But “The things I cannot change” tend to remove my courage to “change the things I can”. Even my prayers fall short of strength. Where am I? I often wonder. Are these my declining years? Then how is it that the road is so steep?

Six times I have dipped myself in this muddy water and the leprosy is not at all gone. I feel ridiculous! I am labeled as some fossilized mind because I’ve been here too long. “Your father knows what things you have need of before you ask”…Scripture says.. “IF we pray because we want answers we will get huffed with God” Oswald Chambers says “we are not here to prove God answers prayer; We are here to be living monuments of God’s grace” he adds. And then I’m reminded of a comment I heard about the change someone observed of their parents. “People softened by the forced reflection that comes with loss”. God answers his own prayers on our behalf!

I guess Lewis and Clark had to pack first before the adventure started. probably walked a 1000 miles before they discovered anything new too. I’ve had the same feelings this week that I had when I left grade school for Jr. High! Real insecurity with all that is new in technology and marketing. I know just enough to know that I don’t know what I need to know. It’s down right unnerving.

I have never been busier than in the last three months. Tours seem almost a dull experience compared to the steep learning curve of the new buzz word “social networking”. I have two different band entities as well as solo shows and now book tours to handle. rebuilding the websites was scary at first but I’m finding real joy in seeing what new can be done. now learning to twitter in the nest too and it goes to ten websites or blog pages.

Good news though… I can keep the websites and blogs on my own schedule and changing every day! now there’s an adventure!    K so…. bryan D