My Favorite YouTube Video

Tonight is one of those "watch-YouTube-videos" kind of nights.

I was feeling a little "blah," so I was looking for some motivation. I always seem to find this video. It is my favorite video of all the millions of videos on YouTube. It is about Ryan Hall, an American professional distance runner. In this video, Ryan talks about his conversion from wanting to succeed at running so badly, in a sense, worshiping running success, to running for Christ.

As a runner, I often correlate running with my music. I love to make cross-connections. Many things that Ryan says about running in this video apply to me in my music, and when I am discouraged, there is nothing quite like this video to refocus me. Below are a few quotes Ryan says, and what I gather from them:

"I was frustrated with life. I wanted to go to the Olympics so badly and had worked so hard for my goal, yet despite all my efforts, it didn't matter. Here I was, four years later, watching others live my dream. It was a devastating time in my life, but God used it to teach me some very important lessons. He taught me that running had become my God. Even though I knew Jesus, I wasn't looking to Him to find the satisfaction I was so desperately seeking. My sense of worth and my joy was totally dependent on how well I was running. The result of having running as my God was frustration, worry, depression, and discontentment with life." 

Insert "flute playing" for "running" in the above paragraph, and I have been there. I have often placed so much worth on how well I was playing that I became discouraged and depressed when things weren't living up to my unrealistic expectations.

"I had become like the rich man, who, when asked how much money was enough, replied, 'A little more.'"

I, too, have troubles enjoying my successes, because I am already living years ahead of now at the end of my goals. But Christ calls me to live here and trust Him day by day. How do we do this?

"I am convinced that the good life is a life of discipline, following hard after Christ...I feel God calling me to run free, free from having to make the team, free from the need to prove myself, free from the worries of this world, free to run with passion and praise for God, free to pour myself out for Him, not for me."

This is such a difficult task. It's easy for the logical side of my brain to take over and say, "You have to do this-and-this or you won't be good enough, you won't get a good job, you will be a failure." But I know these things are worried lies of this world. My God CREATED the world and He will take care of all of us! Let's live free!

"There is only one person who can say they are the best in the world, and they can only boast of this for a short time. So what does this mean for the rest of us, who believe and strive to be the best in the world, yet fall short of our goal? If we can't accomplish our goal, does this make us all failures? Are 99% of the people out there wasting their lives because they never made it to the top? Of course not. The hope I want to encourage you with is that we all can run with him and experience a joy more fulfilling than any performance or accomplishment we can dream of. We can all have the satisfying, abundant life that Christ promised us."

I love this quote. Ryan reminds me that it's all about Christ. I want the life the Lord gave me to shine through in all I do. My music is just a tool to communicate and help other people find joy. I continue to work, step by step, to take hold of my joy. How about you?