I Still Believe Read online

  The cross on which You’ve hung

  Is not a place for a king to be.

  Lord, the wounds that stung,

  You did it all for, You did it all for me.

  That song came out of a time when I had wanted to get out of my own selfishness and not take for granted that Jesus Christ had given His own life for me. My writing became like a self-feeding cycle in which I would write what I was reflecting on, and that would allow me to reflect even further on what I was writing. It was like the deepening of my relationship with the Lord was leading me to go even deeper with Him.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE GIFT

  When I finished school, I decided to stay in California and continue working as a bagger at Vons grocery store to pay off my school debt. Toward the end of the summer, my friends and I decided to break up the band we had put together, so I spent a lot of time hanging out with musical friends from the College and Career ministry at Calvary Chapel Vista, near San Diego, about half an hour away from CCBC. We would get together and jam, and I also helped lead worship for our College and Career services.

  That fall, Jean-Luc Lajoie of The Kry came to our area looking for musicians to fill a youth band he wanted to form for Harvest Church crusades. Someone had recommended that Jean-Luc check me out, so he came one night to listen to us practice.

  Afterward Jean-Luc talked to me a few minutes, said he liked a song we played that I had written, offered a few observations he had made of me, and then told me about his youth band plans. He said he would be interested in talking to me about joining the band and suggested we both pray about it and get back together to talk more.

  I liked Jean-Luc right off the bat, and we started hanging out a little. He obviously had a deep love for Jesus, and despite how popular The Kry was—they were well known nationally, but they were the band in California at the time—he was a really down-to-earth dude. When Jean-Luc’s plans for forming the youth band progressed, he invited me to join. I told Jean-Luc I would pray about it.

  Those early days of uncertainty after college bore some similarities to when I was trying to decide whether to go to Bible college or to try to play football at Purdue. But there was one notable difference. Before, my choice basically boiled down to God’s will (Bible college) or my will (football). This time, my options all had to do with ministry. There wasn’t a clear-cut, God’s-way-or-my-way conflict.

  My dad’s church in Lafayette was five years old by that point, and he told me how much he would love for me to return home and work alongside him leading worship. But he also encouraged me to seek God’s will for my life and said that if God wanted me somewhere other than at his church, then that was what he wanted for me too.

  At one point I wondered if I was missing out on something. I was watching a college football game on TV. The player who had been expected to be my backup running back if I had played my junior year in high school was playing in the game, and he scored a touchdown and rushed for more than a hundred yards. He was playing great in a nationally televised football game while I was working at a grocery store and, although I had a couple of options, not really playing music yet.

  That could have been me playing football on TV, I thought.

  But then I remembered my dad’s words on the Friday night three years earlier when we had driven past the high school football game I could have been playing in: “You’re doing what the Lord has called you to do.”

  Shortly after watching my former teammate in the TV game, I had the opportunity to play and sing at a camp. The amount the camp gave me was larger than any I had received for playing music. It also happened to be just large enough to pay off what I owed CCBC. With the school debt paid off, I quit my job at Vons in December 1998, moved out of the place where I had been staying with a friend and his grandparents in Oceanside, and went back to Indiana, unsure whether I would stay home for good or return to California.

  At a major crossroads in my life, I had serious conversations with my parents about the options I had and my search for God’s will for me. As usual, my mom pointed me to Scriptures that spoke to what I was going through. My dad knew the importance of the decision I was facing, so he suggested that the two of us go stay at a friend’s cabin, where we could fast and pray for a few days.

  That was a special time with my dad. There were no media in the cabin. We didn’t have cell phones. We fasted and prayed together, and we spent time fishing and just talking. I remember having such a soothing peace while we were there. In my prayer time, I told God I didn’t want to reexperience my old tug-of-war contests. I didn’t want to do my own thing, as I had previously. I told God whatever He wanted me to do, I would do.

  While we were at the cabin, I felt God speaking to my heart that He wanted me to go back to the West Coast.

  Are you sure? I asked Him. I moved out of my place. I am ready to serve here at Harvest. Do you really want a jobless, homeless dude heading back to California?

  In my quiet time, I felt a strong affirmation that it was God’s will for me to return to California. I believed God had a plan and would give me everything I needed to follow His leading.

  Telling my dad wasn’t easy. On the car ride home, I broke the news to him.

  I know my choice had to be crushing for my dad. I can imagine how exciting it would be for a father to have his son join him in ministry, but that wasn’t going to happen. I apologized to him, and he said he understood.

  After we were home, I had one more sit-down talk with my parents about my decision. They both agreed that I was doing the right thing.

  A CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER

  I stayed in Indiana through Christmas. My family was together on Christmas morning, with April and her husband, Trent, joining us. Every Christmas morning, our parents would pick one of us kids to pass out the presents, and that year I was the designated distributor.

  I handed out all the gifts except for the biggest one, which had been tucked behind the tree. There was no name tag on the wrapping.

  “Whose is this?” I asked.

  “That’s yours,” my mom said.

  I had no idea what it was, but I started unwrapping. I noticed everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch me.

  As I tore the paper off, I could see from the box that it was a guitar. And not just any guitar, but a Taylor guitar, which I knew carried a price tag of about two thousand dollars!

  I was completely shocked. Not only had I never asked for a Taylor, but I also had never allowed myself even to dream of getting one. To ask for one would have been asking for something twenty times greater than my biggest gift ever, so opening up a guitar was more than I could dream of.

  Tears filled my eyes, and others in the room were crying too. I looked over my gift, still in disbelief, and even now I remember clearly the words that came to my mind: Lord, whatever You want. Not my plans, but Yours. Here I am.

  Anticipation came over me as I played my new instrument. Although I hadn’t been thinking I could become a full-time musician, I had begun to realize that God had given me my musical abilities. My parents’ present was a strong affirmation that music was a gift to be completely turned over to God. And now I wouldn’t have to ask a friend to borrow his guitar to use that gift!

  Before Christmas, I had told my mom that I really needed a guitar. Jean-Luc had told me I had to get one because I was the only person he knew who borrowed guitars to play in churches. But I told my mom I had no idea how I’d ever be able to afford one.

  “I know, I know,” my mom said, hiding the fact that she and my dad had already purchased one for me.

  My parents knew from our phone conversations how much I enjoyed leading worship at school and in churches. They sensed that God was using music to work in and through my life.

  One day when my mom was washing dishes, she strongly felt that she and my dad needed to buy me a guitar, even though they didn’t have the money for one. It turned out that my dad had had the same impression separately.

&nbs
p; So they took out a loan to purchase the Taylor. They considered it an investment in my spiritual future. But before signing for the loan, they asked my sister and brothers to sign off on giving me a guitar. They explained to April, Jared, and Josh that they couldn’t afford gifts like that for them, too, and that their gifts would be much less expensive than mine that year. But my sister and brothers were excited because they knew how much a guitar would mean to me, and they gave my parents their go-ahead for the plan.

  For my flight back to California, there was no way I was going to check my most prized possession as luggage. I carried my baby onto the plane with me.

  When I boarded, I could see the overhead bins were beginning to fill. I got a little paranoid. I told a flight attendant, “I can’t put this anywhere but in the overhead bin.” If the airline would have let me, I would have stood in the aisle for the entire flight and put my guitar in my seat—seat belt fastened around it too. The flight attendant was sweet and understanding, and she helped me find a place to carefully stow my treasure.

  I landed in California with one bag and my guitar. I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have a place to live, and I didn’t have much of a plan beyond my friend Bryan picking me up at the airport and taking me to a youth pastors’ conference at CCBC.

  During the conference, I bumped into my friend Isaiah Thompson, whom I had met while attending Calvary Chapel Vista.

  “Hey, man, I heard you need a place to stay,” Isaiah said. I don’t know how he had heard that. (Perhaps my friend at the college whose dorm room I was crashing in was making it known that I needed a place!)

  Isaiah told me that his grandmother in Vista was looking for someone she could give room and board to in exchange for looking after her, buying her groceries, taking her to appointments, and running other errands for her.

  I had no other options at that point, so I accepted Grandma Marge’s offer through Isaiah.

  The next day, my youth pastor, Dave Hole, gave me a ride to her house. When we pulled up to the address Isaiah had given me, I told Dave, “I guess this must be the place.”

  “You mean you’ve never been here before?” Dave asked. “You don’t know this lady at all?”

  “Nope, but I guess this is where I’m gonna stay.”

  THE NEXT STAGE

  I knocked on the front door, and a smiling, gray-haired, grandmotherly woman answered.

  “Hi, Marge?” I said. “I’m Jeremy. I guess I’m going to be living with you.”

  “Oh, you have such beautiful eyes,” Grandma Marge said. “Come on in!”

  Marge led me to her breakfast nook, where we sat at the table and began getting to know each other. She asked about me, so I told her about growing up in Indiana, moving to California to attend Bible college, playing music, and going back home, then feeling like God wanted me to move back to California—even though I had no place to live.

  Marge told me about her husband, who had served in the military and had passed away a few years earlier. She also talked about her faith, and as she told me some of what she had been through in life that had both tested and strengthened her faith, I could sense the resolve in her heart. Our conversation carried a touch of sadness, too, because it was obvious she missed the companionship of her husband. Yet Marge smiled the entire time we talked.

  “Let me show you to your room,” she said after about an hour. “If you want to go shopping for groceries tomorrow, here’s my credit card.”

  I set my one bag and my guitar on the bedroom floor. When Marge left, I sat on the bed and took a deep breath. I had needed only one trip to carry everything I owned into my room, and my arms hadn’t even been overloaded. I had less than twenty dollars in my bank account. I had a cell phone, but no car.

  All right, Lord, I prayed. Here I am. What do You have in mind for me?

  I called Jean-Luc that day to tell him I was in town, and he informed me that the youth band he had wanted to form didn’t work out. But because we had hit it off so well when we met, we stayed in touch with each other and hung out some.

  One day Jean-Luc called to ask if I wanted to help sell The Kry merchandise at a concert. That night led to more invitations to work the merch table at concerts. Jean-Luc and his brother, Yves, would give me a little money for helping out. Every bit of income meant a lot to me.

  More helpful than the money, though, were the relationships that developed with Jean-Luc and Yves. Being around them allowed me to see how much integrity they had on and off the stage.

  Jean-Luc would be very direct with me with questions such as, “Are you staying in the Word?” and “Have you been praying?” and “What’s God shown you lately?” I needed his directness to hold me accountable. I knew Jean-Luc would be asking me those questions, and that anticipation helped me stay disciplined in my spiritual habits.

  There was one question he asked a lot that we still ask of each other: “How’s your carpet time doing?” We would literally lie on the floor, facedown on the carpet, and pray.

  Jean-Luc talked about the Lord all the time. He encouraged me a lot too. Because of my uncertainty as I sought what God had in store for me, I needed Jean-Luc’s encouragement in addition to his directness.

  Jean-Luc also mentored me musically, and—thankfully—he was just as direct with me about my music as he was about my spiritual life.

  “Oh, buddy,” he’d say in his great French-Canadian accent after listening to me, “your timing is not good sometimes.” Or, “Man, when you’re singing, sing what you mean.” He would ask, “What are you saying?” to make me think about the message of the words. When I would tell him what I was thinking, he would enthusiastically say, “Sing it!” But then he also would be very intentional about encouraging me too. When I played and sang, he liked to tell me, “Man, I love your heart.”

  After we’d been hanging together for a while, Jean-Luc asked if I wanted to play a song at their concert that night. I was caught off guard because I hadn’t expected that question. I was thrilled just to work the merch table and learn by watching The Kry in action.

  “I would love to,” I said with a big smile.

  I was so nervous when I took my place among the band members and looked out at the crowd. I mean, this was The Kry I was on stage with. My first song with them was “Get Away.” I think I was more concerned with Jean-Luc than with the crowd, because he was such a perfectionist musically. Anytime I felt myself getting off rhythm, I would cringe inside. I was so fearful of messing up that I felt like a robot on stage as I played.

  I called my parents. “Guess what—I got onstage and played a song with The Kry!” They were excited, too, and asked what it was like.

  “It was crazy,” I said. “I was so nervous!”

  My parents wished they could have been there to see me onstage—even though it was only for one song—and they told me how proud they were of me. My parents were always telling me how proud they were of me. My dad had a certain way of saying it that has always been special, and he said it during the phone call: “I’m so proud of you because you’re serving the Lord.” (I still love it when he says that today.)

  Either Jean-Luc didn’t notice or—more likely—he overlooked that I was about as smooth as C-3PO my first time on stage, because he allowed me to play with The Kry a few more times.

  It was clear that some type of music ministry was the direction I was moving, and people around me were encouraging that. But I wasn’t ready to step forward and declare I wanted to be a full-time musician or a music minister. I hadn’t had a “This is what I want to do” or an “I want to be this” moment. When pressed about music, I would say, “If that’s what God wants, cool.” I had set my own path before and witnessed the negative effects, and I did not want to do that again. But I did feel like God was opening doors for me in music.

  A big door opened when Jean-Luc said, “Hey, why don’t you play one of your songs?” At Cedarville College (now University) in Ohio, I performed before The Kry for the first time, singing �
��This Man” and then played “Get Away” with the band again.

  The rush was incredible. After hearing the crowd’s response and feeling how the Lord was in that place and how my music was a part of people’s experiencing His presence, I left the stage that night, thinking, This is it—this is what I’m called to do!

  I became driven to play and sing and to share my heart.

  More opportunities to do just that came, again thanks to Jean-Luc.

  When The Kry would receive concert invitations from local churches for dates it already had booked, Jean-Luc would refer the churches to me.

  I had to bum rides or borrow friends’ cars to get to the churches until an acquaintance heard of my situation and offered to let me drive an extra, older car he wasn’t using. It was just like how people had provided cars for my parents when I was growing up. The car I drove wasn’t much better looking, either. It was a Nissan Sentra—a 1981 model, I believe—and when I’d hit a bump, the trunk would fly open.

  I never put my Taylor guitar in the trunk. A guitar should never, never, never be placed in a trunk anyway, but especially not in one that might pop open without notice.

  A funny thing about that car was that it was a stick shift, and it was old enough that the numbers had been rubbed off the knob on top of the gear stick. When I got up to speed in fourth gear on the freeways, the engine would rev with an annoying, high-pitched whine. A friend riding with me one day suggested above the whine that the car might be a five-speed.

  “Where would fifth gear be?” I asked him.

  He told me to try shifting all the way over to the right and up. Sure enough, it was a five-speed! The car sounded much better at higher speeds after that discovery.

  My Taylor guitar was worth more money than the car, but just as my parents had been with the various cars they had received, I was grateful that God had placed it on someone’s heart to meet my need.