My parents sacrificed a lot for my siblings and I. A lot. When I look back, it’s just unbelievable how much. For some in our family, they still are. I honor my parents for what they have done for us, the examples they set, and for the biblical teachings we received throughout our lives.

I also am grateful for their support of dreams that eventually died. Yes, there was more than just one or two. One dream in particular I had in my younger years was to enter into the Christian music industry. Wise or not, they took out a loan and sent me to recording engineering school, where I spent a few months learning the trade and hob-knobbing with music ‘stars’ in studios, sometimes until the wee hours of the morning. I loved it, at the time.

After graduation, of course, reality set in. As a recording engineer, you don’t get to decide who you work with. The owner of the studio does. I somehow overlooked that little factual tidbit. Instead of an Amy Grant or a Randy Stonehill or a Phil Keaggy, I ended up recording bands like ‘Beer on the Penguin’ or ‘Dog Eaters’, whatever that means, or worse, farmer Joe down the street who, even though he couldn’t sing worth a lick, still expected me to make his anniversary gift to his wife sound brilliant. Newsflash, folks: If you sing good, an engineer can make you sound better, but if you sound like an injured mule caught in a crevasse, please, save your money. You can only do so much in a studio.

Quite frankly, I’ve had more ‘big dreams’ that died than I care to recount. The comforting thing for me now, is knowing God was watching over – and out – for me. He still is. In fact, with every selfish dream that has died, my desire for Christ Jesus has grown stronger. The largest, most  selfish dream I have had, the biggest one of my life, one I’d held so close to my heart for so many decades, well, watching that one die just leveled me. It was long, slow, and more painful than I expected. In fact, there are times when it still hurts.

But there’s one desire I have that continues to grow and I can never lose. No one can take it away, and I can never be separated from it. Ever.

Among other things, that’s what me and Steven Curtis Chapman have in common. We’ve both been given much, and lost much, at least in our own eyes, albeit different circumstances. In both our cases, it’s not the end of the story!

Chapman has come out with a new album called Recreation. Being conformed to the image of Christ is happening to all of us who are in Christ. Part of being re-created in the image of Christ is daily dying to self and having the desire for Christ replace all those self-exalting, self-everything desires and dreams we all have had or still have. It’s painful. Jesus promised us His joy, but He never promised the journey would be painless.

In the video below, Chapman makes a statement I can so identify with:

I don’t know that I really understood that God is everything I need until He was the only thing I had.

Oh man, I can relate to that. I bet some of you can as well.

Like all of us, in his younger years, Steven had no idea what “The Great Adventure” had in store for us: