Allen C. Paul | Founder, God and Gigs (00:00)
What's your greatest and biggest worry as a creator? What keeps you up at night?
I had to face some fears that I hadn't thought of recently. And the reason why I realized, I haven't really dealt with this is because how quickly it escalated from this is a problem to this is serious.
To what would I do? And that's why I want to make sure that we are open about our fears and our worries. Cause if something is in the back of your mind and you don't know what you do and you don't even kind of have trust in God on how He would take you through it, we should address that so that you can build up your faith before it happens. Hopefully it never happens, but definitely not to live in fear of it.
So when the Bible says fear not, it's so obvious that there's a reason. God would only say fear not if there was a problem with fear. If there was a situation in every single person's life where fear, uncertainty, and worry were taking over. That's the only reason God would have to give us that command. And he says it over and over, he says it in Matthew.
Six, do not worry. Fear not is said, I don't know how many times, but I think almost a hundred times in the Bible. But again, I want to be very honest with you, as a creator myself, that we cannot act like fear is not part of what we have to deal with as creators. We have fears and uncertainties just in the creative act. The very start of everything always ends up being a place of wait a minute.
I gotta push myself through this. What if it doesn't work? What am I doing? How do I manage this? All of these worries and concerns basically accompany every stage of the creative process. So I should say, creators, we should be used to this. Musicians, artists, directors, filmmakers, poets, writers, authors, everybody. We all deal with this uncertainty because the second you put your pen to paper or put something on your computer.
The second that you put your in pick your instrument up, there are certain things that you can't control. And there are things that you have to leave up to God and you have to leave up to just whatever happens. And it can be scary. It can be scary because one of the things that's uncertain is what are people going to say? How is it going to be perceived? Those are uncertain. But then just as scary can be whether I have the capacity to do this.
Am I still able to do this? Can I finish the work? Am I capable physically, mentally, emotionally? And that's the uncertainty that I had to face myself. I wrote about this in our creator checkup newsletter recently. But I had, after just having a relaxing day with my granddaughter and my son, my daughter-in-law, and my wife at a church gathering, had one of those, whoa, what just happened?
moments with my health and my body, specifically my arm. And I was like, wait a minute. I literally used my hands and my arms to make a living as a pianist. So after a couple of days when things didn't seem like it was getting a lot better, worry started to set in, fear started to set in. Cause it was like, wait, I I have so many performances that I have signed up for that I cannot skip out on, that I cannot get a sub for. Maybe I could. Maybe that was another unfounded worry.
That I wouldn't be able to find somebody to help with my performances or sub out or whatever, because I was so concerned that you know I would have to be there. And if I had learned the piece, and then no one else would be able to learn it. So I just put myself through all kinds of worries and frustrations, knowing that now I had an issue with something that I had counted on. And again, like I said.
As a believer, I should have faith in God and faith in healing and faith in what He put in me. But the actual situation felt felt scary, basically. Was just when you're doing what you think you're supposed to do and you find out you can't do it, that's a moment of of like a crossroads, I guess you could say, or just a that's a real, real scary time to say, am I?
Am I declining? Are things going to never be the same? I had to face that myself. And like I said, the problem I've probably realized now is one was whether it was blown out of proportion or not, which I don't think it was. I had to face the fact that I hadn't really thought about it. That's why we it was scary because I had never considered. I have for years been trying to diversify my my
My income and my work, as you can see, is podcasting. I don't have to play the piano for that. I've been trying to diversify to make sure that I wasn't always relying on performance as my bread and butter. But for now, it is a large part of my career. And like I said, that's why I kind of short circuited for a moment, because what if I didn't have playing as part of my career? What would I do in the interim? I've left jobs before. We've had no income before. We had to make it work. But that was then this is now.
So I have to be honest. I had to figure out whether or not this was something I had really considered and whether I had brought it to God, whether I really prayed about it. What do you really want me to do if I didn't have this particular gift? If I didn't have this ability, would you still love me? Would I still be fulfilled? Would I be able to make money? Would I all of that? So all the facing of the fears and uncertainty of that moment came rushing in. Now I'm going to tell you my first point right away.
Which I'm realizing even as I'm talking about it, is that a fear unacknowledged is a fear that can grow. An unacknowledged fear is a fear that can grow. Because it's unacknowledged, it's not it's try you try to keep it hidden, you don't bring it out. And things that stay in the dark usually don't stay in the dark. They usually grow, but they grow and you don't even realize how big they got until they're out in the open. So this fear is
question has to be brought out in the open. Can't be left in the dark. Has to be, hey, are you fearful as a creator? Are you fearful of this? Are you fearful of that? Because again, the Bible says fear not, but we can't fear not until we know what we need to stop fearing. What do we say no to? What thoughts do we take captive? So in my heart, my head, it was absolutely the the performance, it was the four or five days of rehearsals. It was all that am I going to be able to sustain and continue to play?
And then as I mentioned, it's next of, well, if I didn't, if I couldn't, what would I do? And here's where identity is so important. It's why I'm working on a new devotional call to creator's identity, because I'm realizing that identity, especially in this age, is so important to know why and what you do and who you are Before you get caught up in what you're doing. And so that's why.
Think it's super important to say to yourself and say anyone who's uncertain, do I know who I am and why I'm called for a certain thing? If I feel uncertain, what are you certain of? Let's build from certainty. So I'm a child of God first, and I know God loves me, and that He loves me whether or not I create things every day and whether I am a productive creative. I want to make sure that's a key thing that you think about right now.
Because in the creator's identity, I'm really trying to focus on who is God? How does he refer to himself as a creator? And what does that say to us on how we refer to ourselves? We're made in his image, so that means we take on those attributes. The one thing I've noticed just as an aside is we're never technically called creators inside the Bible. That's not a term that's applied to us. It's a modern term. So we got to look at God and say, wait, you had the original title when nobody else did.
So, how do we make sure that we honor the way you think? One of the ways that we honor the way God thinks is to be rational, to be disciplined, to be focused on what's next instead of worrying about what's next. So we come up with a plan and we come up with a thought process and we say, This is how I'm going to deal with this. Now we're acting more like God. And it's such a blessing, such a powerful thing to know that we can overcome the Bible says by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of our testimony.
Blood and Lamb is obviously Jesus, but the word of our testimony is what we say. What we say to ourselves, what we say out loud, what we say to fear, how we overcome it, and how we decide we're not going to be swayed and broken down by the the fears and the worries and the cares and the circumstances of life. So that's my little encouragement to you to number one to acknowledge, right? To talk about it. But then the last one's gotta be to.
pray about it and to take it to God and put trust entirely in Him. Now I again have trusted God many times over many situations, but each time you have to re-up your trust. Re-up on embracing God's sovereignty, His willingness to help. And when it comes to the uncertainties, whether it be health wise, whether it be getting a job, getting a placement, getting a gig, getting a relationship going, getting your career going.
It all has to be put back in his hands. And the things that you are worried about, he can put back into your hands when you're ready and when he's ready. So this one of those things, again, maybe sounds simple. It's not easy to face your fears. It's not easy to share your fears. So you should be doing it in a community, whether it be a small group, church, or whatever. But it should be happening. You should be slowly, constantly confessing your faults to one another so that you can be healed. So that community is super important to share.
And get your fears out to put yourself in the word, put yourself in the Bible, put yourself in community, put yourself in this church, local church, and make sure that you are never getting stuck in your fears by yourself. Even if they're fears that nobody really understands because they're not in the creative space. You can do that. And then once you do that, you're gonna have so much more joy and peace because you did the right thing and shared your fears with other people.
Okay, but until next time, continue to become the creator that you were created to be.
