Taken
In 2006, Jesus appeared to me out of nowhere. It didn’t happen all at once. It was spread out over several days, about a week actually, and I was in Africa. It was March and Jennifer, my wife, was at home in Franklin, TN with our two-year-old son, Hutch. A friend had asked me to go to South Africa with him on a missions trip earlier that year and I couldn’t find a reason not to go, so I went.

At the end of our trip, the local pastor met with all fifteen of us and thanked us as we debriefed from the week. Before he stood to leave he asked which one of us was going to come back for six months and continue what we had started. Everyone in the room, including myself, knew I was the one. I went upstairs to my room in the guesthouse and wept. I had seen Jesus in Africa, in the people, in me, and everything was different now.

I decided it would be best to get home and settled for a few days before I talked to Jennifer about this. She’d always told the Lord she would go anywhere for Him except Africa. I knew I needed to be patient. She picked me up at the Nashville airport and we went to lunch. I told her the story before we paid the bill.

When we meet Saul in the Bible, he is presiding over Steven’s murder. In Acts 8 he is “ravaging” the church. By Acts 9 he is asking for more power to bring more followers of the Way to justice. Then Jesus appears in a voice, on a road, other people hear and see it, and everything changes. Paul is taken from His old life and put on a new path, a new “Way”.

Sometimes God takes people unexpectedly and puts them on the Way. Some are taken from a life opposed to God, some are just wandering around. Jennifer and I were already Christians, but we still needed to be taken from a shallow life of being served, of being comfortable and numb.

Broken
By April of 2006 everyone in FFH had agreed that, for several reasons, after we’d played out our confirmed shows, we would take an indefinite break. Jennifer and I had resolved that we we’re going to move to Africa in the fall. She and I were filled with a New Hope as we tried to picture what this meant for us. I was different and the change was enough to convince Jennifer that we were on the right path.

That May, I went with Hutch to his first real sleep over at a friend’s house. I slept on the futon in our friend’s living room and when I woke up, I noticed a numb patch on my left arm. By that evening my whole arm was burning. After a few weeks of excruciating pain and numbness I saw a doctor. A test to confirm a common pinched nerve revealed a lesion in my spinal cord. I was sent to a neurologist who told me what it could be but nothing was confirmed. Pain meds helped the symptoms but I was sinking into depression about what this might mean.

With my doctors recommendation, we moved to Africa despite my increasing symptoms. Our cottage was quaint but had no heat or air conditioning and was filled with sand when we moved in. We expected Africa to be warm but we slept next to electric heaters during our first month. We were lonelier than we expected, and disoriented much of the first few weeks. But things got better, and I saw a doctor for some anti-depressants, and slowly Jennifer and I, along with Hutch, found each other for the first time. We made friends and truly rested, and while parts of us died, parts of us came to life.

After six months we returned home expecting to hit the ground running but again things were not as we planned. The Lord was silent about our future so we sat and waited for His lead. We turned down over seventy concert offers knowing the time was just not right and we tested some other doors that proved to be locked.

That summer, my symptoms returned with a vengeance. In September of 2006, I was officially diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I was relieved to finally know what was going on but eventually the relief gave way to more worry and more questions. I chose to wait for a new MS treatment, which wouldn’t become available for eight more months. So again I waited, we waited, together.

After Paul’s conversion he drops off the radar for a while. At least three years. He tells the Galatians that he was in Arabia, in the desert, but that’s about all we know about his whereabouts. What we do know is that when he reappears he’s a different person with a different name.

Given
In June of 2008, we visited Jennifer’s family farm near St. Louis for a few weeks. I was still recovering from my first chemo treatment and we still didn’t know what was next for us. During that visit, I got a phone call from Rob Howard, the worship pastor at our home church in Tennessee. His four artists-in-residence worship leaders were all out on the road and he was trying to find someone to fill in for the next Sunday. I knew this was God’s invitation, not just Rob’s, and for the first time in three years I said “yes” to a request for me to play music.

A few weeks later, Rob took me to lunch and shared that one of our leaders was leaving and he’d like me to consider becoming an artist-in-residence at Fellowship. I cried as I told him that this was the first time in three years that I’d felt the Lord saying yes. I’ve been serving at the Church ever since.

A few months later, Jennifer and I flew to Idaho in response to a special request to play music. Not long after that we began to sense the Lord leading us back to FFH so we began recording Wide Open Spaces. In February of 2009, we resumed touring officially.

Everything is different now; our lives, our family, our message. We haven’t been built back up like you might expect but instead we are continuing to be broken and the Lord is using the broken pieces to feed others. I take a handful of pills in the morning and we are still walking the desert of uncertainty in many other areas but we have joy and we know this is Gods best for us.

When Paul returns to public life it is as a broken man with a thorn in the flesh. He spreads the gospel through brokenness knowing only Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He is filled with unexplainable joy as he suffers stoning, shipwrecks, beatings, and imprisonment for Jesus’ sake. And the pieces of his life become part of the Church’s foundation.

Jesus broke apart five loaves of bread and fed thousands. He Himself was then broken for all creation. When we follow Him on the Way we will be broken and re-broken for others. But like the five loaves we will not expire but instead we will be given more of what we need to nourish other people along the way.