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If there is a question that I don't have an answer to, um, I like to try to research it and figure out the answer. Uh, which I know there are some of you that are greater Bible scholars and stuff like that than me, but I today was trying to figure out if there was ever a time in scripture where anybody was um, how do I say every anybody was put on display because of their lack of skill? Does anybody know? I personally don't know. This is not a trick question. All right.
I haven't actually found it in scripture where anybody was like, "This is so and so and they were terrible. This is so and so and they couldn't sing. This is so and so and they could not play their instrument." Well, has anybody ever seen that? Okay. So, not just me. So the reason why I'm I'm asking you that question is because how many of you have seen in scripture where there's a scripture that said this is so and so and they could play skillfully. Ain't that interesting? I think there's something to be said about being skillful. And um tonight I I if I could I guess give you a thought or maybe a word or something like that behind the thought, it would be a skillful sacrifice. A skillful sacrifice.
Uh I'll I'll try to keep like a little bit of structure um here, but it is a direct command in scripture to sing unto the Lord a new song and play skillfully with a loud noise. Now, when I think about this, it's kind of interesting because I go a lot of places where I hear singing to the Lord a new song with a loud noise and that skillfully is nowhere nowhere to be found. Now, I I y'all can relax, okay? I'm not shooting at anybody tonight. We're all friends here, okay? So, I'm not here to get anyone. But I am here to point out the fact that there is something to be said about playing with skill. David would probably not have been recognized as much in the scripture if he was absolutely terrible at his instruments. Matter of fact, it would have been even more of a miracle if David did what he did and wrote all the songs that he wrote. If he was terrible at singing and playing, wouldn't that be a miracle? Like, man, here's this dude David. He's terrible, but I tell you what, he can write a song. He's terrible. And I'm telling you what, you won't enjoy listening to it, but it sure feel good when he plays.
So, so uh 1st Samuel 16:16 said, "Let our Lord now command thy servant which are before thee to seek out a man who is cunning, who is a cunning player on the harp, and it shall come to pass that when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hands, and thou shalt be well." 1st Samuel 16:18. then answers one of the servants and says, "Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethleamite that is cunning and playing and a mighty valiant man and a man of war and prudent in manner and a comely person and the Lord is with him." I am grateful for all the things that David was. But I think the interesting thing is that word cunning there, the word cunning there normally means from what I found it means skillful.
So if there is a time in your life where you could maybe bring God a sacrifice, let's say God was at your house one day, Jesus walks in the door and says, "Make me an offering." Or for some of you that love to cook that, which I love to cook. What if God says, "Make me some food. Make me your best dish." You know what you're not going to do? You're not going to go into the little thing. Now, some of y'all, I apologize if you're going to pull out all the box foods and all the little things, but for some of you, you're like, "Okay, God, I'm gonna fire up the smoker. I'm g I'm g had to go to the store. I've got to make sure I get the best cut of meat. I gotta make sure I get the best fish. I got to make sure I get all the right ingredients to make sure that when the King of Kings eats this dish, it is the best thing he's ever had in his life." Now, I know that seems like, oh, okay, you know, he's just talking. But think about it. Think about our offering and sacrifice to our God. When we show up to service and God stands and says, "Hey, why don't what will you bring me today? I'm I'm here to receive something from you." And then we go and we just get the little microwave dish, five minutes of our time, and we just give God the TV dinner. There you go, God. Hopefully that tastes good. We don't even like it ourselves, but we'll give it to God because that's just, you know, that's just how that's all we had time for. But if it was I hope we understand where I'm going without me having to beat this thing up. Okay.
So what I'm saying is is I think we may need to re-evaluate this thing called sacrifice and we also need to re-evaluate this thing called skill. Skill does not come without time and practice. Okay. Um, I know that there are many people that do a lot of stuff and it seems like what planet are these people from that they can get up and sing and they can get up and play and they can play the piano and the organ like Sister Cali and they can teach all these things about vocal technique and be an opera singer. Where where do these people come from? Well, it doesn't happen from a TV dinner. It doesn't happen from a little fiveinut like oh okay I'm just going to decide to do this today but there was actual effort that was put forth before the finished product ever happens. I would also venture to say that it was David out there in the field early in his life and he practiced when nobody else was around. It's super simple. I know. But I think that what I see a lot now is a lot of people while they're in the process of growing, while they're in the process of learning, oh man, I'm so sorry guys. They take out the camera >> and they set the camera up for everybody to watch them practice at the level that they're at. and then they want everybody to share it and everybody to look. But whatever happened to the field, it's not it's it's not going to have as great of an impact if you're putting yourself out there like that whenever man I don't even know why I'm saying this. I'm sorry, but it's not going to have the same impact to the king. If you're just out there posting this, posting that, putting this and that out there, you've got to leave something for people to actually say. >> David wasn't there with his billboard whenever they asked for somebody to play skillfully. David was probably out there in the field doing something. >> And they said, "Call on David. He's skillful. He's a He's a mighty man of valor." They said it. He didn't have to say it. And when he showed up, it wasn't all fluff. Here's the problem with this Instagram generation and this social media generation is that everybody wants to post their highlight reel. >> Everybody's got one. But the thing they don't tell you is the videos that they post is number 32 of trying the same riff. But nobody wants to talk about that. And all of our singers and you're like, man, they can really sing. They didn't tell you that they've been trying to sing the same thing in their voice crack at least 70 times for a whole week before they were able to sing this thing that you want to try to sing on your first try. This is this is an illusion that has been given.
So, if if there was one thing that I could hopefully try to help us out with today, it would be put the time in. All right, put the time in. You're not going to learn things overnight. Well, you might learn things overnight. God has the ability to teach you things overnight within a couple of hours, within a couple of minutes. Nothing is too far-fetched for God to do for you. But there is a flip side to that. God is expecting your effort. All right? You're not just going to be able to pick up a microphone and decide you're going to sing one day and then all of a sudden all these beautiful notes just come out because you thought, "Man, I think I'll wake up and sing today." But you're going to have to work at it. And you're going to have to continue working at it. Now, there's a lot of us. We have school. We have jobs. We have all these different things. But my question is, do you have a few minutes in your day to put forth effort? >> Do you have an hour? Because think about this. Even if you're not preparing for what's happening today, a chef doesn't learn how to make the perfect dish on the first try. A chef doesn't even know the specific ingredients that he wants to put in the perfect dish until he makes a couple other ones and messes those up and realizes that this spice tastes like this. I know I'm talking a lot about food, but I think we get the point here. >> That's what happens. We are trying to create this recipe so that we can give God this sacrifice because he deserves it. We wouldn't have breath in our body if it wasn't for him. We wouldn't even have the ability to think we can sing or play or do anything good if it wasn't for him. >> We wouldn't even have the brain to think it if it wasn't for him. >> So, we have to realize and keep first things first to say, God, every single thing we do, we do it for you. That's why we're here tonight. That's why we showed up. Not just to have good food. by the way, that was great. But not just to have good food, but to be able to say, "God, you know what? I'm taking a little extra effort." And I'll just go ahead and tell you this in advance. Sister Callie's going to do a great job here in just a minute. You've heard incredible teaching today. That's going to be awesome. But whether it lives on past this moment is going to be up to you. >> Cuz we can do this every couple months. You know, we can do this a couple times a year. We can spend a couple hours. Or somebody could say, "You know what, Lord? This is my sacrifice to you. This time is my sacrifice to you." And while I'm there, sacrifice has to cost you something. There's something called a sacrifice of praise. Some people, you know, some people think that I'm crazy. They really do think I'm crazy. They talk about me all the time because they're like, "Man, that dude's wild." But there's a reason for that. It's my sacrifice of praise. >> It cost me something to be this crazy. >> I've been through some things. >> You may not know the whole story, but it cost me to do this thing. That's why I love it. Y'all ever see somebody and it looks like they're having the time of their life when they're worshiping? I'm I hope that I'm that guy in Jesus name. Well, then you get that and then you get the ultra intense where it looks like I'm mad at everybody. I apologize for that, but I feel deeply. Okay, I really do. So what I'll say is is is the sacrifice of praise in your life will come out in different ways and forms and it will sound different and feel different when you begin to do what you do because everybody's cost is different. Showing up sometime in the I I get these things. It's called the Sunday mornings. You was talking about how it takes your voice a while a while to wake up. If you ever call me in the morning, I sound like a whole different person cuz my voice is like, "Your body's up, buddy, but I ain't getting up yet. Have fun." But sometimes I I get the Sunday mornings and for some of you that's worked an extremely hard work week and that you're working maybe a job that you're working nights and you just got off work and maybe had an hour nap, twohour nap and then you got to go straight to church to rehearsal. That's a sacrifice. That's a sacrifice. For those of you that worked all day or went to school, all these things all day, and then now you're here and listening to me talk to you. You know, that's a sacrifice. Just listening to me talk is a sacrifice. I apologize, but we're here together now. So, but really what I I think I think what happens for a lot of us is we do this sacrifice thing with an kind of an end in sight. Let me explain to you what I mean. I think people are willing to make sacrifices if they know that they're going to get something in the end. >> Now, God honors sacrifice. But there's some folks, they're only going to put forth enough effort if they believe they're going to be singing at the next conference. I'm going to practice real hard. I'm going to practice hard enough that hopefully somebody hears me sing this now. Didn't y'all go viral? I'm sorry, squirrel. Did y'all go viral for for a song? >> Y'all went viral. Okay, let me tell you this. Social media is not your friend. Amen. >> All right. Can I talk real? I love everybody, but social media is not your friend. Sorry, Sam. It's not your fault, bro. It's not your fault. There's wolves out there. Okay. And and and I'm going just tell you this. If your goal is to sing good enough to get on a real, you got the wrong thing going already. >> That's right. That's good. >> All right. Your goal is to get good enough to play on whatever or play on the record or this or that. That's not why we make sacrifices. We make sacrifices because he's worthy. >> Cuz he's worthy of it. >> I'm not sacrificing for what's in it for me. >> We got to get back to this sacrifice thing. This real sacrifice thing. And I know this church knows a lot about it. There's a whole building over there being built and all these things because of sacrifice. But it's more than financial sacrifice. It's more than savings sacrifice. There's a sacrifice that only you can give because it requires a part of you. A part of you. And nobody else has that part but you. I I I don't know the proper way to articulate it all, but I feel like in this next season, God is going to require things out of some of you. And it's only going to be things that you can give cuz it's going to require you. And it's not just finances. I'm talking about it's going to require a part of you. Those things are going to be seen and felt by every person that comes to your church. They're going to try to figure out why the worship feels different in your church. And I've been here when y'all are praying and worshiping. Y'all know it goes down. But that's not that's not the the end level >> and that's not the end goal. Y'all are good already, but there's more. >> There's greater impact that's coming, but it's going to come from this thing called or that I'll just call for today a skillful sacrifice. I think a sacrifice of praise is is is kind of interesting. I know God will God will honor any of our efforts and the things that we do and you know the things that we try to do. I believe God will do that. But I think there's a special touch of God whenever you it cost you something and you do it in a skillful way. Now, I know there's this balance between I I've heard a lot of people say this. Well, you don't want to practice yourself out of the anointing. I'm going to gently combat this, okay? Cuz I think you can actually get to the place where you can practice so much that you just about have no choice but to be anointed. There's some people now and I'm again I go to a flow church. All right, we're crazy at my church. Whether we actually make it through the first song or not, that's just up to God. The most songs we plan in the service is three and we only get to two and people get the Holy Ghost every service. All right? We go to a flowcentric church. But what I'll tell you is this. The part of the reason why we're able to flow and do and all those things is because we put forth the effort and we practice beforehand. Now we don't have to think about what exactly we're playing or how we're going to get there. When they start singing, we play it. When we start playing, they start singing. Why? Because there's a skill element to this. There's a skill element to this. We can praise and worship in our house, but it ain't gonna be amplified through this bad boy. Because when it sounds bad, it sounds bad. But when it sounds good, it sounds good. You know, everything is going through the systems now and we got all this nice stuff and it's going to get even better from here and the sound's going to be even more incredible. And when you go and there's delay on your voice, that's gonna be awesome for somebody. Maybe not you. And the only reason why I'm saying this because it's happened to me a bunch of times. The bad part is is sometimes that ends up on videos and then people like, "Hey, bro, did you die today?" Like, yes, I did, as a matter of fact. But um but I did. I I I try to put forth the effort beforehand uh to make sure that that God is pleased with with my offering. I don't ever want to show up to a service and not be prepared.
Now, I know I've talked a lot about skill, but now I'm just going to talk about prayer and then I'm going to open it up for questions. You cannot learn at the pace and at the level that you need to learn without prayer. >> Amen. >> You can't. >> I know there's some people that think you can. But I'm telling you now, you cannot learn at the pace you're supposed to learn and at the skill level you're supposed to learn without prayer. The only people that are bound by time is us. God is not bound by time. Questions, it can be anything. Yes, sir. >> Jero. >> Jericho. Um, so I'll just tell you this. I was uh You asked what inspired the song Jericho. So here's what's crazy. I wasn't there when the song was written. Some of my friends wrote that song and um I think Sister Savannah might have been the one with like the core thought. Savannah Pedigo now might have been the one with the core thought. Um but what happened was is brother Brandon um who was just here a little bit ago, he led it of course first time and then I started leading it other places and it just kind of became an anthem for my life. And um so I mean I can tell you where I lead the song from, but I wasn't a part of the writing process or anything like that. It sounds like it's mine cuz I feel it that way, you know, like that's my song cuz I'm worshiping from that that place speaking to my own Jericho. So I think it just comes from a place of, you know, God being able to do the impossible, you know, bring down things that we think are impossible for him to do. So hopefully that answers your question. It can be questions on anything. By the way, didn't I scared y'all earlier when I started getting on some of the stuff? I'm sorry. I don't want to be that guy. >> Well, who gonna talk back to me? Goodness. Hey, bro. >> Gave me the Holy Ghost. >> Yeah. Yeah. Uh I was 12 years old when I got the Holy Ghost. And I went uh You ever heard of overtime? I went into triple overtime, like when the game is over. Yeah. I went into triple overtime with God that night. And I told God, "I'm not leaving this altar till I get the Holy Ghost." And uh it was hours after people left. And it was me, my mom had to wait for me to get done praying. And like a couple ladies who were cleaning the church, I didn't get the Holy Ghost with a whole bunch of people around. But um when God gave me the Holy Ghost, when God gave me my spouse as well, and when God gave me my children, and then I mean there's a bunch of of other things, but those are some of my greatest miracles that I actually have. If you saw my kids, you'd understand. >> Yes. >> Was she asked >> when I learned to play the piano? Um, I think I was 17. Yeah, I was 17 years old. So, it was I graduated at 17 as well. So, it was like during that last little bit of my high school years that I uh that I learned how to play. Yeah, you it never mind. I was going to diss myself, but I'm not going to do that. God's good to us.
whenever you're learning new song parts and things like that, what does that look like? >> Yeah. Uh, so let's talk about learning new songs, learning uh parts and things. I'm going to tell on myself here uh because of the um frequent amount of conferences and things and songs and everybody's got weekends planned and so if there's three services, you can at least plan on about four songs per service. So that's 12 songs in a weekend and then people get these crazy ideas to find the newest song that nobody has ever done before that nobody has ever going to do again. But we're not even going to talk about that. And so what do I have to do? What I have to do is uh and this is just how my brain works. Uh because I play instruments as well as sing, my brain processes everything at the same time. But I have to separate it out kind of in my brain so that I understand what's happening. Because normally when I go in, if I'm the worship leader, they're going to say, "Are we singing these parts right?" So I don't just have to learn the song for me to be able to sing it. I have to learn it to be able to teach everyone. So I'm going to break it down how I do this. I will listen through the song. And what I'm listening for in the song is actually dynamics first. dynamics and melody. I'm listening to dynamics and I'm listening to melody. And the reason why I'm doing this is because um is because basically I uh I need to figure out where the song is going and what it feels like when we get there. Sometimes people are all like lyrical people, you know, they show up to rehearsal and they always have a lyrical question. Are they saying uh or ah on that? And you're like, "Well, as a matter of fact, you haven't sang a single note right this whole time. So, it doesn't matter if it's uh or ah, okay, I need you to sing this melody, right?" And so, if I find that if I learn the dynamics to the song, and if I also learn the melody of the song, then everything else normally will be able to fall into play a little bit more because I'm shaping words now into the melody that the song already has established. Um, and then from there I okay, so when I learn I'm also not just learning for what exactly I'm doing again, I have to kind of learn for everybody. So I also listen for vocal cues I listen for m lines in the music I listen for all those things because nine times out of 10 I can't tell you I can't tell you if I have to sing this one line eight times. I'm not counting that cuz there's this eight and then I have four other songs that's going to have another 12 or 16. Especially these new songs when they start vamping everything I'm not counting that, you know, but if I hear the musicians do the I'm like, oh, that's the last time. So sometime you just have to listen to the, the whole thing. Uh, but what I would say is I would I would lean toward uh structure, the structure of the song and figuring out what the main dynamics are of the song, right? You don't want to come out of the gate screaming on a song where they're like thousand generations. I mean, if you want to a thousand generations, you know what I'm saying? And the whole band is like barely playing, you don't want to do that. So, you kind of need to know the dynamics. Anyway, I put on my my uh super Sunday night special on that one. Sorry.
Um, so there's a couple things that I forgot to tell y'all about. I think it's really important um to actually uh to talk about. So, um, there was a time in my life not too long ago and basically um I got a word from the Lord that I understood but I didn't really want to receive it uh because it anyway it was it was just an interesting time for me. And so, uh, specifically when this word came to me, I had been gone for like 3 weeks straight. Um, just doing ministry, different places, all these things. And I had not been home. And it was killing me because of course my wife and my kids were home. They weren't able to come with me, but I had been gone again for 3 weeks. It was terrible. And I walk in and I received a word from the Lord. And basically the prophet told me um that there is a period of time every year when airplanes are grounded. And airplanes can fly high, they can fly fast, they can get to where they're supposed to go to, all these different things. But at some point in time, they have an inspector come through and inspect the plane. every nut, every bolt, every seal, every seat, every everything, but it has to be a specialist on the specific aircraft. And he basically said, "You are the aircraft, sir." And so I was like, "Oh my goodness, I have to get grounded." So I went to my leadership and uh I'll tell you where some of the the power comes from when I'm doing what I do. It's because of obedience. Um, because there's a lot of people in my position that would have said, "I'm traveling. I'm doing stuff already. Why would I slow down now?" And um I received that word. I take prophetic words very seriously. So I went to my pastoral leadership and this what I told him. I said, "Look, I got this word. I need to come talk to you about it." And basically, I'm not going to tell you how when when I need to be home. I'm not going to tell you how long I need to be home. I'm not going to tell you what exactly to to tell me to do or not to do. I'm just going to put it in your hands and tell them exactly what the prophet said. And I let them choose. So, every December, I don't travel out outside of my home church. I don't travel and I love y'all and I'd love to come see you in December, but I don't go to anybody's church in December other than my home church. And that's my time to basically be inspected and all these things um in my life. And I I'll tell you this, why why is this important? Because there is an anointing. First of all, oil does not flow up. It's simple gravity. All right? You're never going to see anybody where it's like you're going to be the next whatever whatever and then they pour the oil on the ground and then the oil starts coming up and flows. No, oil flows down. Super simple, I know. But I realize if I'm going to be able to do what I do, I've got to have a covering. the stuff that I deal with from week to week, day to day, all these things. I need a pastor, you know, I need leadership in my life that's going to that's going to help me, that's going to be able to see stuff that I can't see. When you're in the trenches, it's a lot harder to see everything that's around you. Sometime you got to have the watchmen on the wall look out and say, you know what? I see three things coming down the way that you can't see. It's time to get out of there. So, I'm I'm mentioning all this to you today because of sacrifice. Sometimes you're not going to agree with your pastor. I'm sorry, Pastor Jackson. Sometimes you're not going to agree with your pastor, >> but your yes is going to matter a whole lot. >> Amen. You might not agree, but I'm telling you, there's some stuff that he'll be able to see that you can't see. >> That's why he's the watchman on the wall and you're not. >> All right. Super simple concepts. Sorry for that pit stop questions. Yes. >> So, along those same lines, how do you know all the time? How's it been balance balance between your travel to do your family? >> Yes. Um, so my family is always a part of of what I do, whether they are with me or they're not with me. My wife is a prayer warrior to the extreme degree. Uh, and when she speaks, she means what she says, which is a very good thing. Um, but what I try to do is I try to keep my priorities set regardless of what airplane I'm on or what state I may end up in. We always look for opportunities that my family can come with me, which is great. But even if they're not with me, I'm always in contact, always in touch. Um, as far as just balance overall, God is still helping me with that. I am not a guru. Uh, my phone has over 1,000 something unread text messages in it right now and I probably got 30 more today. Um, and so I'm sorry. That's the reality of my cell phone. If you ever try to get up with me for anything, I'm probably not going to answer. I apologize. So, you just have to call me or tell somebody to tell me, whatever. But, I'm still learning this balance thing because, and I'll tell you why I have so many unread text messages in my phone. God convicted me a few years ago because I was more imbalanced at that time than I am now. And here's the reason why. Because everywhere I was going, I was somewhere else. Maybe there's something bigger for somebody in this. Let me slow down and just say this, okay? I was here, but my mind was somewhere else. And what I found out was I couldn't really treasure what was happening here because I was already living over here. >> And God really convicted me. God was doing miracles here that I couldn't even be grateful for because I was already living over here. I was existing in this time, but my brain was over here. And I told God, I said, "God, what a slap in the face to you it is for me to live and go through all these things and have these services and whatever." And I can't remember a thing that happened because I was already in next week or I was already in the week after. And so I had to bring some more balance to my life and let my wife kind of ground me, you know, to be my like, okay, sometimes I have to ask her what day it is cuz I don't even pay attention anymore. Like it just it just happens. And I could be in church every day of the week. It just happens that way sometime. So I'm I'm still learning the balance thing. Uh, but I'm getting better at it. the the biggest balance factor that I did not take care of was myself. Isn't that crazy? I took care of everybody else, but I didn't take care of me. And my health started showing it. Maybe this for somebody in the room. I don't know. Maybe it's just for me as a reminder. My health started showing it. My brain function started showing it. And I was still able to do stuff for everybody else. But what good are we to everybody else if we're not even good for ourselves? Anyways, uh, I think I have time for one or two more questions. Yes. >> Um, so like are you meaning like pre-ervice prayer or just prayer overall? >> Oh, yeah. Um, so, uh, you mean like what songs we're gonna do and all that stuff? >> Oh, yeah. Um, so pretty much, um, I think it starts in multiple levels because we are the directors of music at our church. We try to pray about, I know it sounds like overkill, but we try to pray about every song we put on the set list for a service. Um, we also, we're we're very deliberate with our time with our team. We tell our team we have specifically one hour designated on Saturday. We do not go a minute over. We may go minutes under, but we never go a minute over one hour because we try to treasure everybody's time. That's just the way we do it. not saying it will work, whatever. Um, but as far as the like anything specific for prayer, I pray for sensitivity. Uh, and I pray, you know, that's just every day though. Like I I don't actually pray. It sounds crazy. I don't pray anything differently for a specific rehearsal than I do for my everyday prayer because if I if I have the right heart going into it, everything else is pretty much going to fall in line. We're all human beings. We all have bad days, whatever. So, if I can get me right, then everything else is probably going to flow a little bit better. Um, but I do pray and I have prayed for our team for retention most mostly. Um, the reason why I say that is because we can teach all we want to teach, but human retention I think overall is going down. Uh, memory is going down overall. So, there's a big retention problem um that I've been seeing in a lot of stuff. just because we're so distracted by all the other things that exist in the universe right now. Um, and so I do pray a lot of times for retention. Um, so that whenever we come back to service, if it's 3 weeks later, if it's a month later, 6 months later, we can pick up the microphone, if we have the song on the set list and remember how the song felt when we sang it, remember our parts, all those things. Retention is a big deal. Any more questions? Yes, sir. >> Um, this may sound a little weird to you. I don't like to sing. Yeah. Uh, I don't like to sing. Um, I would much prefer to play instruments and, uh, I never wanted to be a singer. And I never wanted to be a preacher. I didn't uh I was a drummer. That's what I did. And I didn't want to play any other instruments until the Lord said, "What's going to happen to her?" Um but I think kind of what set it in stone, first of all, my it it was in the spirit when whenever it happened, but also I I don't know. It's like God put a burden on me and it would not let me go. Just wouldn't let me go. So, I didn't grow up singing either. I didn't start singing till like closer to the end of my high school years. God did a lot of changing in my life at that point. And I think it was it was a sacrifice and I was willing to say yes. and God has put his hand on it because every time I get up to sing I now I love to worship. So of course I'm going to have the time of my life. It doesn't matter what form it is whether it's sound, media, instruments, singing, whatever. I try to give God my best. But um it wasn't anything like God just came down and was like send somebody to me. You are going to sing all of these things. Like that didn't that didn't happen to me. But in prayer though, um, God wouldn't, he just wouldn't let me go. And I get nervous just like everybody else does, you know. Uh, I still get nervous. I walk up and I'm like, "Lord, you going to have to help me tonight cuz I can't sing, you know. Uh, I still have times where I get up and I exhort and I forget the first words of the song. So I have to tell my wife before I get up there, "Hey babe, I'm singing this song. This is the first song. Okay. If I look at you lost, I need you to help me. Y'all think I'm playing. I am dead serious. Somebody give God a shot of praise. Intro's going on and I'm going, "What song is this? What song is this?" And if you ever sang with me and you've been back there, I literally will. I'll turn around. What song are we singing? What song is this? What's the first words? Walls fall down. I'm dead serious. Y'all think I'm turning around for no reason. I'm for I'm lost. I'm lost as a hurricane and a goose. Okay, so the deal is y'all catch that next week. But he just caught it. It's a goose in. Anyway, uh, but but anyway, so so really like my nervous stick sometimes that happens, but I think God puts his hand on it because it's it's my yes to him, you know? It's not a thing where I train for years and years and years and like whatever. But when God called me to do this, I said, "Okay, God, I'm not going to give you something halfway." So, I try my best to do my best.
All right. >> Uh one more question and then I think we got to roll and I've already gone over time. Sorry, Sister Cali. Nobody else has questions. All right. I have a question for you, but I don't want you to answer the question. I want you to write it down or put it in your phone or something. Okay? And this question is something for you to ask yourself. All right? I don't know exactly if I'm going to word this properly. But the crux of the whole question is this. What am I doing today that's going to make me better tomorrow? Now, not better for you tomorrow, but better for God tomorrow. What am I doing today that's going to make me better for tomorrow? All right. We got to keep first things first and God deserves our absolute best. This is not this question is not for personal gain. What this question is for is for you to keep in mind somewhere in your day. Am I doing something that God is going to be able to use today or tomorrow or the next day? Or am I wasting time? Am I wasting moments? Am I wasting effort? Am I actually learning and putting my hands to something that God can use? Even if it's not tomorrow, even if it's not for years, am I doing something to pour into the future, not just the future of your life, but the future of the kingdom? Because we never know who God's going to use. Have no idea what God is going to do through any of us. But God's looking for our yes. So everybody, every day should have something that you're doing to contribute to your tomorrow, to contribute to your next year, to contribute to the kingdom. Even if that's just praying, if that's just singing, if that's doing vocal warm-ups, if that's doing vocal care, vocal care doesn't start when your voice goes bad. Vocal care starts way before your voice goes bad. That's how it heals up quicker. If you don't take care of your voice beforehand, I I'll give you this one one practical thing and then I'll let us go. I don't drink coffee. I love coffee. Coffee is great. And Starbucks coffee is not good. >> Sorry. >> Whoops. I hit a nerve on that one. I know I did. There's like a couple PEOPLE THAT'S LIKE, "THAT'S RIGHT." AND THE REST OF YOU IS LIKE, "OH NO, he said something bad about Starbucks." But Starbucks coffee, the beans are overroasted. Anyway, I said what I said. Um, but I don't drink I don't actually drink coffee. And here's the reason why. Reason why I don't drink coffee is because the caffeine dries me out. I've been going to the holistic doctor now and I found out that all that stuff was right and that caffeine my body rejects caffeine. So, that's soda, which I don't drink, uh, coffee, which I don't drink, all these other heavily caffeinated things. And there's only one time a year where I'll have a cup of coffee. It's when I have at least two weeks that I'm not traveling. That's in December. So, I kick off December with a cup of coffee every time. And so what I'm tell the reason why I'm bringing this up to y'all is because your stewardship of your gift and your stewardship of what you're doing does not just start in the day that you have to use it. >> It starts in the weeks leading up to it, in the months leading up to it, in the days leading up to it. All right. Take care of yourself. Take care of your voice. Learn your instrument. Stay submitted. Did I miss anything? Make sure you're Holy Ghost filled. Get the Holy Ghost again and again and again and again. And fix your bad attitude. Get the Holy Ghost again. You know, you going to be all right. All right. It ain't always going to be like this. It might be this way tomorrow still, but you know, just get the Holy Ghost again and we'll pray another day in Jesus name. All right. Love y'all. Appreciate you.