I’ve lived a lot of my life surrounded by thousands of incredibly talented people working hard to make their dreams come true. With show business, as with much of life, there doesn’t seem to be any justice to who makes it or not. So many amazing talents have gone unnoticed. A question I’ve asked myself a lot is, what does it actually mean to “make it” — or to “succeed”?

I believe this question is ultimately asking, where should we place our hope? I’ve lived long enough to realize that can’t put my hopes in all my dreams coming to fruition. I can’t put my hope in my own efforts. I can’t even put my hopes in God to work all the details so I get what I want. Nope.

I have to put my hope solely in God. And trust that the life God gives me is exactly what is best for me... and holds the deepest joy. There’s a freedom in this belief.

Surrendering my agenda leads to peace. And living with that kind of peace, to me, is success.

I’m So Thankful

I’m so thankful for my crazy, creative, random life. I’ve had the opportunity to do some really awesome things—things that I would’ve previously viewed as being “successful.” Things like being on national television, being in a few movies, doing concerts all over the country, making nine albums, and having songs on the radio. But something funny happens when you get to do things you only dreamed of: the marker line of what is deemed “successful” changes. The sheen quickly diminishes from the shiny object you’ve been focused on, when it’s now in the rear-view mirror.

With the recent release of my “Jesus Kind of Love” song, I wasn’t exactly sure what my definition of success would be. Here were some possibilities:

1. Chart-topping success on radio stations around the world.

2. Invites from labels to join their roster.

3. Other artists asking me to collaborate.

4. Thousands of downloads and streams of the tune.

None of these things have happened (yet!). But people like you have been super encouraging to me, expressing fondness for the tune, and compliments on my performance. How much affirmation do I need in order to deem the song a success?

See how all of this can be super confusing?

My favorite comment so far came from someone I don’t know yet. For me, it hit the marker that I was trying to hit when I came up with this song, wanting to connect with people who may have had negative experiences with the church but still want to hang on to their faith. They said: Have added it to my "songs that have some kind of Jesus or God in them that I can still tolerate" playlist.

Love it. Success.

I know that I could work myself into a frenzy trying harder to promote the song and honestly, I will keep doing some additional promotion. But my efforts are more rooted in the reality that many people in my network who I know will enjoy the song haven’t heard it yet. Many people don’t surround themselves with music to the extent that I do, and I’d still like for them to hear it.

My Definition of Success Is Changing

I posted this on my Facebook page last week:

The version of success I used to hold onto so tightly looks (now) so much like a life that's super busy, constantly pushing and working to build and grow "the brand." My current version of success looks more like simplicity, freedom to do whatever the muse invites me into, peace of mind, and way more about relationships than work.

Success looks like the fruit of the Spirit being experienced in my life: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I love how Eugene Peterson describes these fruits: “Affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.”

It’s very clear to me that the world’s definition of success is very different than God’s. It’s sickeningly easy to think that our worth and value are based on what we accomplish. It’s even easy to let ourselves be defined by what happens to us—the good or bad circumstances that life throws at us.

I want to be defined not only what God thinks about me, but by how I choose to respond to what happens to me. Instead of looking at my achievements or my circumstances to tell me whether I should feel good about myself, or as any kind of indicators of God’s love for me, I’m going to continually choose to be a person of hope—defined by my posture, rather than my performance. Looking at life, not by what I get out of it, but who I choose to be in the midst of it all—the good and the bad.

And trust me, I’ll be keeping track of the sweet tastes of the fruit of the Spirit.

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What I’ve Been Reading

If found this article about the billion-dollar “He Gets Us” ad campaign to be quite revelatory about how off they are from the Jesus of the Bible.

I’m a big fan of Brian D. McLaren - his books Faith After Doubt and (his newest) Do I Stay Christian? are brilliant, and super helpful if you or anyone you know is wanting to hang onto their faith, in the midst of our currently turbulent, religious environment.

I also loved this Substack post from the editor of Relevant magazine, Tyler Huckabee, as he wrote about some Christian’s obsession (or delusion) with “being hated for the sake of the Gospel.”

How about you? What are you reading recently that has been particularly inspiring?

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