Joshua Swanson: Welcome to The Walk, a devotionals podcast for worshipers. Brent McCorkle is our guest, and some of you may know Brent as the co-director of the film Jesus Revolution, but what you may not know about him, Is that he grew up leading worship, writing, music, scoring films, and all of that creative energy led him to becoming a filmmaker.
In this episode, Brent shares about his recent seven year spiritual journey. Here we go.
Brent McCorkle: Hey guys, this is Brent. It’s good to be here with you you today. I’ve been through a pretty radical spiritual journey in the last seven to eight years of my life, and I realized I had a profound spiritual issue and that was I was carrying a lot of resentment and bitterness and harboring of, um, You know, anger and, uh, like a victim mentality around some, uh, some stuff that had happened to me.
And I realized what I was really missing was gratitude. And it’s so funny when you are struggling with something because you’ll often be drawn to the scriptures that you need. Uh, you just don’t know that you need them, but for some reason, you know, they’re your favorites. But I remember when I was much younger, I was putting a band together and I was interviewing an amazing bass player.
But in this interview, I couldn’t help but gripe about every person that had taken advantage of me or, you know, used me in some way to gain something from me. And I just was in such a victim story and was very angsty and grumpy about a lot of things. And I remember this kid, he was so wise, and he was younger than me, but he was a deeper soul, and he was deeper spiritually than me.
But he just stopped and he got really quiet and he said, let me ask you something. What would you be if you ended up in a wheelchair or you ended up with your hands chopped off and you couldn’t play a piano, or your voice got taken from you, or you were blinded and you couldn’t watch movies anymore. And I didn’t have an answer.
Joshua Swanson: We’re gonna take a very short break and we’ll be back with Brent in a moment. Stick around.
Brent McCorkle: I knew at that moment he wasn’t gonna join my band. You know, like he, and, and that was, it was so funny because that’s what I cared about the most at that moment. And, um, It’s so ridiculous now looking at it, you know, and I, and I can have grace for that younger version of myself that was, that was bent outta shape about this stuff.
But man, he’s, he had such an amazing point and if I was gonna be his leader in this band, he needed more out of me. And, uh, that was a, that was a pivotal moment for me in my life. Now looking back at that. And he was so right, and, and, um, I talk to a lot of young artists now and I mentor them because, when you are an artist, it seems at the core of your identity is your music or whatever you’re doing artistically, and that’s not right.
It’s a lie, and you have to extricate yourself from this feeling of identity as an artist, what you are is a soul, and you’re having a, an earth journey and this dumb earth suit and you’re meant to learn spiritual things. Whether you’re an accountant, whether you are in a wheelchair, whether your hands are chopped off, uh, all these things that, those aren’t your identity. These are things that happened to you and are, and artistic wiring is, is maybe, you know, maybe allows you to pick up a guitar and play something cool, but at the end of the day, you’re a soul that’s put here to learn some things.
And here was, here was, uh, a, a scripture I was always drawn to as a worship leader, and it blew my mind and it’s really dark. But if you know the story about Job, uh, God and the devil basically have a chess match over this guy, and the devil bets God and says, “Hey, if I took everything away from him, he would curse you. He wouldn’t. He, he wouldn’t be your guy anymore.” And God says, “okay, cool.”
So, within a matter of moments, Job had everything taken from him. He had the most horrible calamities, befall him, probably more than any human being on the planet. Everything was taken from him, all of his children, all of his wealth, all of his possessions, his belongings, uh, his health. Everything was taken from him in one fell swoop. And here was his answer, when he got all this news. He said, Job, it says, Job got to his feet, ripped his robe, shaved his head, and then fell to the ground and worshiped. Naked I came from my mother’s womb. Naked I’ll return to the womb of the earth. God gives. God takes. God’s name be forever blessed.
And I remember looking at the scripture, thinking to myself, wow, this is a true worshiper, because most of us, you know, you’re feeling good, you’re feeling the vibes, like great things are happening. And, and, you know, um, you’re with your favorite worship band at church or your, your jamming your favorite song, but it’s, uh, it’s more of a feeling, right?
It’s more of a feeling of euphoria or the music it makes you feel a certain way or, you know, the music was on, the music was hitting so hard, you know, in, in worship that Sunday morning or whatever. But I just remember being obsessed with Job and, and looking at this guy going, wow, all this calamity befell him in this one moment and the only thing he could think to do was fall on his knees and worship God.
And um, that’s the ultimate expression of gratitude. Everything’s taken from him and he says, “naked I came into this world with nothing and naked I shall return back to the earth and become dust.” And he cracked the code and he knew, he knew what this experience was about. Um, and so in America, I think the best thing that we are, uh, uh, and that we’re taught to be as consumers.
And so it was crazy, man as a worship leader, I remember hearing this and it really started troubling me even in my own life. But, um, we can even turn worship music into a commodity. So, you know, you walk out of church and someone says, “wasn’t the worship good today?” And you’re actually consuming it. Um, and that’s not what we’re meant to do with worship.
Worship is a posture. Worship is actually our entire lives poured out to God, uh, not just a 20 minute, you know, song set every day. And so, you know, so for me, I realized, um, my life wasn’t really, uh, an active expression of worship to God the way that I wanted. And I’ve spent the last seven years of my life really unpacking what my life would look like if all of my artistic stuff was taken from me. And, um, and you know, not to say that I’m a hundred percent there, but I will say, as I’ve worked to push this artist aspect of identity out of my life, um, I am walking in the deepest peace of my entire life now.
Joshua Swanson: We’re gonna take a another quick break. When we come back, Brent continues to unpack how through the life of Job he learned to become a true worshiper.
Okay, back to Brent to close us out.
Brent McCorkle: So yeah, wherever you’re at, um, With your identity, um, just know that it really is Job that’s showing us the life of a true worshiper here. And it has nothing to do with our talents or what we have or what we don’t have. Um, you know, what, what we’re meant to experience in this life is a relationship with God and the shedding of these things that we’re meant to leave behind.
And so, I think quite frankly as an artist, uh, maybe it is the art that we are to learn to leave behind as well and hold it lightly. I, I white knuckled my life, uh, so through so much of it and had to have things my exact way before I could be happy and had all these expectations around things. And, um, that’s not the Jesus way.
The Jesus way is open-handed, saying, “not my will, but yours be done.” And so I think in the last few years I’ve really learned to like relax my hands and stop white knuckling and turn my palms up to God and open them up and say, you know, “it’s not what I want, it’s what you want. And I’m open-handed to you.”
And um, yeah, it’s made all the difference in the world. So, um, for whatever that’s worth, whatever you’re going through right now. A lot of our suffering in this life is because we’re holding onto things too tightly. And I really think, you know, God is calling us to, to let go. And uh, I think when we are able to get in that posture, like really amazing things can happen in our lives, both spiritually and physically.
Those of our family, the way we treat our spouses, the way we treat our, uh, our kids, our siblings, our parents, our coworkers. I think you can just start showing up in a different way that’s actually more present and actually more Christ-like.
So thanks for listening and uh, I want to just thank God that, um, there is a way to cultivate more gratitude in our lives when we open ourselves up to that. And so, yeah, the Job, the Job story is a constant reminder, uh, in my own life of that, that gratitude that we should all strive for.
I’m gonna pray real quick. Uh, God, I thank you for this day. I thank you for everyone who’s listening. Um, teach us more about your love, your peace, and to be grateful for what we have and what we don’t have. And, uh, to bring that love forward. Help us in our identities, especially as artists with the strong, uh, the strong artist wirings that we have in our head, and sometimes we can, uh, be really absorbed in that. So help us to open our eyes to that and see that we need to find our identity in you, uh, and you only. And, uh, thank you for, um, showing us who Job was as a true worshiper and, uh, just lead us and guide us and help us in our posture of both humility and letting go of expectations and having more of a, an open-handed way in which we walk through this life. In your name, amen.
Joshua Swanson: Brent’s message, encouraging us to model our worship after the example set by Job really encouraged me personally today, and I hope it did you as well. So thanks for that, Brent. His favorite worship song right now is Goodness of God, so we’re gonna close out this episode with CeCe’s version.
As always, special thanks to Matt McCartie for producing and Lukas McCartie for editing today’s episode. Jacob Fairclough produced our theme song. The Walk is brought to you by Worship Leader. I also want to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership. If you go to life audio.com, you’ll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts. They’ve got great shows about prayer, bible study, parenting, and all kinds of stuff. So check ’em out at lifeaudio.com. I’m Joshua Swanson. Here’s Goodness of God.
