Joshua Swanson: Welcome to The Walk; a devotional podcast led by worship leaders. In this episode, Justin Warren, who’s a worship leader and a touring artist, walks us through a challenging season of his career that caused him to question his purpose. Here we go.
Justin Warren: God, I’m just so thankful for this opportunity to, sit down to, I just remember your goodness and your faithfulness in my life. And, um, God, I just wanna make much of you. I want to bring honor and glory to who you are and God, I pray if someone is listening to this right now, and they’re walking through a season of discouragement, God, they wouldn’t find encouragement through this and just pray that you’d be glorified. In your name, I pray, amen.
Yeah, so the year 2020, just like for everybody else, was a difficult time. I was out on the road. I was opening up for a band, uh, called Sanctus Real. There’s another artist out with us named Jamie Kimmit, when the whole world shut down.
I’ll never forget I was supposed to get on a plane to fly out to Kentucky to meet the tour, and that night before everything just started canceling I remember calling the manager and like, is this show really still happening? Am I still getting on this plane? He’s like, yeah, get on it. It’s gonna happen. It’s good. And the next morning I woke up at like 5:00 AM to text messages and phone calls saying, yeah, don’t get on that plane. It’s not happening.
And then after that, it was just one call after another of everything I had planned that year being canceled. All these events I was supposed to go lead worship at were being canceled. And it was just kind of a downer to, be real honest. I was really excited cuz here I was, I was out on the road with this band that I’ve listened to growing up and I’d almost felt like my music career, my ministry had like caught in some wave and I was so excited about what God was doing and what he was gonna be doing next. And it’s like all that just fell from underneath me.
And then I’m at home, you know, twiddling my thumbs with nothing to do and outta nowhere it seems like God starts opening up another door in my life. And, this door would actually call me, uh, to walk away from being on the road, uh, which I was really skeptical of because I have felt called to be on the road since I was in the sixth grade.
But I became open to this idea and then I even became excited about it and I thought the Lord was behind it. And then the next thing you know, that door just slammed shut in my face. And that really led me down a road of feeling angry and bitter. And I probably even battled some depression just cuz I really felt like, God, I really thought you were behind this. I wasn’t even looking for this. It seemed like you were the one opening this door and I was gonna walk obediently through it and now it’s just gone.
I was just in a place, of hurt and pain, and even to the point to where, uh, when things started opening back up and I was being invited back out to be a part of events or to go lead worship, um, my spirit was just not in the right place.
I, I was carrying that hurt and pain and that anger and I was going and leading worship and I really felt like I wasn’t even doing a good job, uh, be because of the state of where my heart was. And, uh, the Lord just really convicted me of that. And I’ll never forget, I really started just questioning, God, are you kind of taking my passion for this away altogether? Are you wanting me to hang all of this up altogether? Because I had always been passionate. I’ve always felt called, and here I was in this place I’d never been before where I felt like I didn’t want to be doing this.
And then in the middle of this season, um, this felt like a dark season. Uh, one of my best friends, he, he’s toured and played drums with me for like six or seven years. His dad was diagnosed with cancer, and I remember we prayed so hard. I, I believe in the power of prayer. One of my favorite, uh, stories in the Bible when it comes to the power of prayer is when God sends the prophet Isaiah to King Hezekiah to let him know, uh, that he needs to get his house in order cuz his time has come to pass away.
The Bible says that Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and he wept bitterly and he prayed to God and he asked God to remember how he faithfully walked with him. And the Bible says, before Isaiah even left Hezekiah’s house that he turned Isaiah around to go tell him that I’ve heard your prayers, I’ve seen your tears, and I’m gonna give you 15 more years of life.
And I’ve always looked at that story as an encouragement for the power of prayer, and I believe we should pray and we prayed hard for my buddy’s dad. But sadly, for us, uh, the Lord chose not to answer our prayers as we were hoping. We were hoping for healing from cancer for more years on this earth, but God took him onto glory where I’m thankful that he’s, ultimately, he’s not sick, he’s not battling cancer anymore, and he’s in the presence of the Lord, whereas the fullness of joy. And I’m thankful for that truth. It doesn’t take the sting away.
So here I am. I’m already in this dark season and you know, a lot of times I have found over the years that when I get alone with God, I wanna talk with God, I end up grabbing a guitar and, and I start writing songs. And I started just writing this song that was filled with questions of God, did I not pray enough? Did I not pray hard enough? Is there something in my life that’s blocking my prayers from getting to you? Like, I don’t understand what you’re doing right now in the season of my life.
And it was just filled with questions. And to be honest, the song was really depressing. Uh, but in all fairness, that was where I was in life. I was, I was pretty down. And uh, but at the end of the day, I still knew that I trusted God. I knew God was trustworthy and I wanted to be able to communicate that in this song, but I was never able to find a way to do that.
So, I just wrestled with that song and it sat there for a while and then outta the blue one day my dad, uh, sends me a text message and it’s a link to a sermon called Jesus Does All Things Well by a professor. Uh, Dr. William Cook is his name. It’s on YouTube. It’s only 30 minutes long. If you get a minute to look it up, it’s a powerful sermon and he preaches outta Mark 7. And there’s an account of a little girl who is filled with an unclean spirit and her mother comes and she falls at the feet of Jesus and she asks him to heal her, and he does.
And immediately following that, there’s another man who is deaf and he has a speech impediment and some people bring him to Jesus and Jesus heals him. And then in Mark 7:37 it says, “the people were astonished beyond measure,” and they said that “he does all things. He makes the death to hear and the mute to speak,” And that’s awesome.
To be reminded of the miracle working power, that nothing is impossible for our God that he can heal us. He can mend broken relationships, but it’s what the guy preaching, what he said next is what stopped me dead in my tracks. He said, “of course, the people would say he does all things well. They just watched him do incredible things right before us. But what about for those of us who are in seasons where we have all these questions where we don’t understand what’s going on in our lives or what God is up to for, for the husband and wife who’ve been trying to get pregnant and haven’t been able to? For the person who doesn’t understand why they don’t have the ministry that they felt like the Lord’s always called them to?”
And when he said that, it just stopped me because here I was, I had been so frustrated, so mad, so upset that I felt like my music career, my ministry that God had to had like gone backward.
Joshua Swanson: When we come back, Justin will talk us through Mark 7 and the encouraging conclusion of his journey through patience and into an understanding of God’s purpose for the next stage of his journey.
But first, are you on a worship team and are you interested in transforming the worship experiences that you lead? Are you writing songs for your church? If that’s you, you need to check out The Worship Leader Institute. Actually, here’s a quick clip from Charity Gale who teaches a course on writing worship for your local congregation over at the Institute alongside Ryan Kennedy.
Charity Gayle: What I think is beautiful about writing for your church is that is gonna have the stamp of your people on it. It’s gonna be that homemade card, not only to serve the heart of the Lord, but to serve the heart of your people. And it just feels like it’s going to bring your people together and it’s gonna be so beautiful cuz they’re gonna feel ownership to those songs. And I think that that’s, really great.
Joshua Swanson: There’s already so much amazing content up on the institute from past conferences, and we actually released four new workshops from top practitioners each month. Our subscription is only $14.99 a month, and if you use the coupon code, WLIEMAIL, that’s WLIEMAIL, you’ll get a month free. So, check it out at www.worshipleaderinstitute.com.
And one more quick shout out to JZ microphones for providing us with their Black Hole 2 studio condenser microphone. Justin and I both used it for the recording of this podcast.
Okay, back to Justin.
Justin Warren: I can look back in my life and I can see God’s faithfulness. He, he was faithful and I haven’t been faithful. He’s been gracious to me. He’s been good to me. He’s provided, but yet here I was questioning him in this season and the pastor said, “for those of us who find ourselves in that season, there is gonna be a day, a day that’s coming that our faith will be made sight and will see in full that he does do all things well. But for now, in this moment, we have to choose to believe that he does all things well.”
I needed to hear that. I needed to be reminded that and then daily, a little by little, I tried to remind myself that God reminded me of that truth, and God started taking that spirit of bitterness and hurt and pain, and I started finding joy in the little things.
And the reality is, if my circumstances didn’t change at all, that God would still be worthy of my worship and my praise, cuz he is good and he is trustworthy and his ways are higher than mine. Through his grace and by his grace alone, I’ve recently signed a record deal. I have a debut single coming out on September 30th, and the cool thing is, is it’s that song that I wrestled with for so long in that season. I was able to make it a little less depressing and finish it. And it’s titled, All Thing Well.
If you’re listening to this and you’re walking through a season of discouragement, or maybe you find yourself in a season of discouragement in the days ahead, I hope that you’ll daily just keep surrendering to the Lord. That you’ll keep hoping in him. That you’ll keep trusting in him and for you that one day, whether it’s a day from now, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now, or years down the road, or maybe it’s not until the other side of eternity, but you’ll be able to look back and you’ll be astonished and amazed and you’ll be able to say that he does all things well.
Mark 7:37, “and they were astonished beyond measure saying he has done all things well. He makes the deaf here and the mute speak.”
So, in closing, you know, there I was, thought my career was going great, and then just felt like all that was snatched away from me, you know, left me in this place of hurt and pain. Through all that, God brought me through that and I see his faithfulness and his goodness and his grace in my life, and he birthed this song through me during this season. And he’s allowing me to go back out on the road, to go back out on tour, where, where my goal and hope and aim is to make much of him and who he is and what he’s done.
So, my hope is that you’ll be able to look back and whether it’s a day from now, a week from now, a month, a year, or years, or maybe it’s not to the other side of eternity, but you’ll be able to look back and be astonished and amazed and be able to say that he does do all things well.
Joshua Swanson: Thank you, Justin, for sharing about your ability to find joy in the midst of difficult circumstances. His ways are higher indeed. We’ll use the song All Things Well that Justin referenced to play out this episode. One quick bit of business, we’ll be taking the last two weeks of the year off from the podcast, but we’ll be back on January 9th with a new episode.
As always, special thanks to Matt McCartie for producing and editing today’s episode. Jacob Fairclough produced our theme song. The Walk is brought to you by Worship Leader Magazine, which is an Authentic Media brand. I’m Joshua Swanson. Here’s All Things Well.
