I found a small café by the ocean.
It was midday, so I ordered toast and a smoothie for lunch as I stared into the cloudy horizon.
In the springtime, nature always shows us what it looks like to transition from old to new, from rest to awakening, from death to life.

I noticed it more this year because it was my turn to shed old ways, old friends, and an old place I’d called home that was thousands of miles away from here. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
While listening to the ocean waves, I overheard footsteps coming from behind me.
It was two young ladies.
They asked if they could sit with me at my table.
I nodded my head and told them “yea”, and we all had lunch together.
We talked about life, how they were both illustrators at the local university wondering what life has in store for them next, and how I was also an artist, a musician rather, wondering what’s to come next for me.
I engaged with one of them more.
She talked about her style of art. I talked about my style of music.
Our conversation settled down so I could let the two ladies talk more to each other while I turned to the ocean to secretly talk with God.

After a couple minutes, I turned to the young lady I was engaging with earlier.
Before leaving, I wanted to have one more brief convo.
I told her I wasn’t from this town, I’d made all of my social media private, and I would be starting my life over somehow, somewhere, someday, as somebody new.
She replied,
“Me too.”
I asked her,
“Would you like to create art with me?”
She tore off a page of her notebook, grabbed a pen, and wrote down her contact information.

I messaged her sometime later explaining that the ‘new me’ would be a man committing himself to Jesus (Galatians 2:20), and my artistic efforts from now on would be focusing on glorifying Him. (Colossians 3:16-17)
I further explained how I didn’t want this artistic creation to interfere with her beliefs and how it was OK for her to choose not to participate.
She replied,
“I’d be more than honored to illustrate a cover for you!!”
I sent her a sample of an unfinished beat that was inspired by my decision to follow Christ.
I told her,
“You have freedom to draw whatever you feel.”

For a month, we went back and forth showing each other the evolution of our art. By giving her the freedom to illustrate what she chooses and by talking with God before playing each melody, I practiced something I haven’t done in a long time: completely surrendering. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

My melodies changed over time with each version of the beat I sent to her. Her art changed over time.
She told me she had a bit of a struggle to find the right creation that satisfied her.
I replied,
“Me too.”
It was a vulnerable experience for both of us, especially as strangers.

I settled on one of my simpler versions of the beat to be the final product. It was soulful, kinda eclectic. She captured the beach vibes of the beat with her imagery, drawing a man and a woman facing the ocean, staring into the horizon.

We shared a moment, then parted ways.

Stream “I’ll Follow You”

After finishing I’ll Follow You, I took a flight back to the city I’d met the illustrator. My purpose for this trip was to do some apartment hunting. It felt good being there. I didn’t know if God was telling me specifically to look here, but I knew He was possibly leading me out of my hometown of St. Louis.

In recent years, my health was declining from my stressful environment, all of my friends had moved away, and the last few months of living with this family member had some strange occurrences. She bought a dog that had extreme separation anxiety which caused him to bark constantly when no one was visible, worsening my already terrible sleeping habits. Also, the ridges of my house key were increasingly deteriorating to the point where it took almost 10 seconds or more just to forcefully insert the key in the door to get inside the house. Was this God giving me the extra nudge to leave?

After a few years of living in this house, I finally had the means to leave. I moved out of my former apartment to save to money to pay off medical bills, buy another car, and replace my 10-year old computer with a new one that could host better, up to date software for my music production. God allowed me to accomplish this within a year, so really, I was just lingering, looking for a specific purpose to move somewhere but never could get a clear idea.

A lot of changes happened in my life in 2016. Earlier that year, I quit music since my last ditch effort to save my career in LA resulted in homelessness the previous year. My ex-fiancée and I were engaged at the time, and her being ready for marriage and kids required me to set a proper foundation that music just couldn’t stabilize. The stress of it all caused up to break up later that year, and the money I saved up for our wedding fund went toward investments in stocks and cryptocurrencies I started. In a fortunate turn of events, there was a crypto boom at the start of 2017 that garnered me enough profit that was equivalent to two years worth of income that my then warehouse job paid me. After working overtime overnight for months on in, I decided to quit my stressful job and get back to my music independently.

My collabs with other artists seemed to always fail to launch, so I decided to just release beats on the internet, something I started to do a few years prior, but just for fun and not as a reliable source of income because I didn’t believe streaming was viable. Speaking of unbelievable things, I believe this was when I started to drift away from my faith.

With my most popular streaming platform being Pandora (no idea how or why) I had a little over 100,000 total streams that year, making me enough money to probably pay my cell phone bill and buy a meal somewhere for one month out of the year. Needless to say, I was draining the money I profited from my investments trying to pursue a career in music again. Honestly, I was losing my passion for making music. I just didn’t know what else to do with my life because it seemed like I was always losing everything I thought was good.

My creativity was decreasing and I swapped my more intricate style of music for simple lofi beats, just to have something for people to listen to. By 2018 I started using social media more to promote my music since I mostly had a lowkey presence online for many years. None of my efforts ever worked, and by 2019 I was working at my warehouse job again.

I was 31 at the time, and as stressful as things were for a number of years, this was the start of my depression. I neglected my health. I barely ate most days. I slowed down making music again because I was tired all the time. I felt trapped at this job again.

Two days before Christmas in 2019, I saved up about 2 months of income to quit my job and find a less physically demanding job. And we all know what happened with the world months later. However, little did I know that the end of 2019 would be the last time I work for someone else (Proverbs 24:16).

Jumping back to 2024, I suppose I was having a hard time mentally adjusting to this bit of freedom I had. Since my income is primarily internet based with music streaming royalties paying the bills, there was no specific place I had to be. I had the freedom to move to anywhere I could afford, which was so different from the life I had for about a decade leading up to this moment.

My flight back to the city by the ocean was eerily calm for me, despite the air being turbulent which would normally be stressful for me. It was the first time I listened to sermons and podcasts while flying.

After I landed I picked up my rental and drove to one of the beaches. I’d walked for 11 miles, back and forth across the coastline, which was the longest I’d walked since getting a herniated disc in early 2023, which I’m still healing from to this day. I was reflecting on life and how I was just in this same city three months ago celebrating the university graduation of a friend I was homeless with in LA nine years ago. This wasn’t LA, but San Diego.

Maybe it was leaving one of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. and entering one of the safest, or maybe it was just a growing realization of God’s presence in my life, it just felt good to be there.

Check this out: The first time I visited SD I drove to a mall. In the parking garage, frustrated about the lack of open spaces, I hastily pulled into a compact car space with my full size sedan rental car. I normally don’t do things like this, and I paid the price immediately.

I caused my first car accident in all my 19 years of driving. I hit the car on my passenger side, rocking the car for several seconds and having a loud bang that reverberated in the whole garage for just as long. And to make matters worse, the owner of the car and his little daughter were nearby, close enough to walk to the car about 15 seconds later. I was so close to the car to the left of me that I couldn’t even open my door.

The car owner of the expensive car I hit walked over to the area I hit to expect the damage. Panicking that any money I had saved to go towards my potential new apartment would now be spent on car repairs, I rolled down my passenger window and asked the car owner if he’d like my insurance information.

He continued to look down. He walked near the front of my car, then back to his.

Mentally preparing to get cussed out, his first words were, “What you hit?”.

I replied, “Well, I know I hit the side of your car. We both heard the bang and I watched your car shake. I can’t step out to see the damage because I can’t open my door. Do you want my info?”

He replied, “Oh, I know what you hit. You hit my tire. I could see dirt on the front of your car that matches where it hit my tire.”

We both laughed, then he and his daughter got inside his car and drove off.

I spent a week in San Diego with no confidence in finding the apartment I believed would be good for me. On the last day, I had my last tour. Open parking spots were so bad in this area I ended up parking a few blocks away. Also, I was kinda paranoid about hitting a car like the last time I was in this city, so I looked for the most spacious spots possible. Upon walking up the complex, I saw a woman walking in my direction. We happened to meet at the front steps of the apartment complex at the same time. We both walked up the steps and I opened the door for her.

We were greeted by the landlord. He asked us we were ready to start the tour of the building since one of his appointments didn’t show up. He primarily looked at the woman, giving her the rundown of the rates of the lease, utilities, amenities, and what this particular county had to offer for resources and entertainment.

As he talked, I listened with more disgust. Many things he said in this tour were not the same things he told me over the phone one day prior. He finished the tour asking us questions as if the woman and I were a romantic couple. Throughout the tour, I found out the woman was finishing up college and looking for an apartment with a budget almost twice as much as mine. The landlord was going to offer her the apartment I wanted for that price range.

I told him, “We’re not together.”

At that moment, he knew I was likely the “appointment that didn’t show up”. And at that moment he was a liar.

The woman and I left the apartment complex. As she walked out, I told her, “You got options.”

She smiled, then we parted ways.

I flew back to St. Louis disappointed but satisfied that I got clarity that San Diego wasn’t the place for me just yet. Dealing with the frustration of not knowing where to move to, lack of sleep back home, irritation of my herniated disc from likely overexerting myself during my walks in San Diego, and coming back home to a flat tire after letting my dad drive my car while I was gone, I was to move almost anywhere just to get out of St. Louis.

I tried my best to finish a beat of later title, “It Was Always You”. I thought of how God was the author of my life, how He was always ordering my steps and making my path straight, regardless if I thought I was making the right move or not (Proverbs 3:5-6). I also learned around this time how Jesus was foretold in every book of the Bible.

I ended up buying a new set of tires for my car and doing some joyriding in the open country while listening to the audio mix of my beat. I didn’t know at the time, but those new tires would be beneficial for my drive to another city for my new apartment two weeks later.

Stream “It Was Always You”

During the several months after being born-again in my mid 30s, I learned many new things about my faith in comparison to my childhood days and during my drift into agnosticism in my late 20s and early 30s. It was the first time I started to gain an exegetical understanding of scripture as opposed to internalizing eisegisis and narcigesis from either false doctrine from a church’s pulpit or my own bad interpretation. Hermeneutics is important, which I didn’t know. There may be many applications of scripture, but there is only one interpretation, and the worst thing you can say to yourself is “What does this mean to me?”. 

For all of my life until age 35, I was unknowingly lost. I didn’t understand the concept of being “born-again”, probably thinking it was just some self declaration based on knowledge of the Bible or the length of time someone has been a Christian. I wish I could remember the exact moment, but it was maybe days after I released, Found, coincidentally and ironically. More on that moment and the events leading up to that moment in another chapter…

To understand what I went through, I thought of watching other people’s testimonies online to see if I’d relate to their experiences. So many people were in different stages of their walk with Christ (Philippians 2:12-13), which makes it so fitting how early Christianity was called “The Way” before there was a name for Christians (John 14:6). After watching testimonies for months, I realized why Jesus called this way a narrow road that most won’t follow (Matthew 7:13-14).

Everyone’s experience of being lost and born-again was different, but two common things stood out: either people never took time to seek the Gospel for themselves or they were indoctrinated and deceived with a false gospel. This can last for years or decades, which I believe is common for most of us, unfortunately.

Seeing many other people sharing similar experiences in the video comments made me curious to learn more about my faith. Researching all the terminology people used sent me down a rabbit hole of research that led me to heresy hunters (or the less controversial title, discernment ministries). These ministries led me to the most disturbing thing about Christianity today: Most scholars, apologists, and many born-again Christians view the popular forms of Christianity today as either false or heretical.

That conclusion is not as radical as it seems. I tend to view it similar to watching popular forms of entertainment as a way of grasping the overall culture of a group of people.

These heretical forms of Christianity are displayed on the popular Christian tv networks and promoted by many celebrity pastors whose words and influence trickle down into the smaller churches or the public zeitgeist.

I didn’t know at the time, but Christianity has broken up into more than just different dominations, but within these denominations we have birthed popular movements of Christianity that twist scripture to promote greed, shame the sick and impoverished, and appease self-centered, controlling, power hungry leaders and followers alike. (2 Timothy 4:3)

The most popular false doctrines  I discovered were New Thought Christianity (similar to New Age), Christian Science, Progressive Christianity, Christian Gnosticism, Christian Mysticism, Prosperity Gospel, Word of Faith, Little God Doctrine, and more. 

Popular controversial movements like the Hyper Charismatic Movement, Seeker-Sensitive Movement, New Apostolic Reformation, Deliverance Ministries, Seven Mountain Mandate, Purity Culture, Christian Nationalism and others might not always have salvific issues, but can cause problems in Christian’s lives and in the world. 

But knowing how many people never transfer from “the milk to the meat”, refuse treatment to better their health, never repent from sinful ways, or become apostate because of the problems of these doctrines and movements, all that makes this a huge deal, a deceptive deal with the devil even (Matthew 24:23-24).

There’s some overlap to these beliefs and movements, but they’ve been infiltrating even the smaller churches for decades. All of this was new to me. In people’s testimonies, this was the root of many people’s church hurt and disappointment that made them turn away from the faith. This was the root of a self-centered gospel where instead of letting God mold us into new beings (Psalm 51:10-13), we’ve created a god of our own liking: a form of “me-ology” instead of understanding exegetical theology. Many of the false doctrines give us little conviction, absolve us from our own sinful nature and put the blame on someone or something else, and produce no lasting fruit of the Spirit among people who internalize these doctrines (Galatians 5:17-23). And spreading the vines of these bad fruits are the leaders who typically fall under the scandals (Matthew 7:16-19).

But even having all this knowledge doesn’t mean a person is born-again. Being saved has nothing to do with things we obtain, do, or don’t do (Ephesians 2:8-9). Late April of 2024 was when I truly experienced the indwelling Holy Spirit and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I developed a personal relationship with Him for the first time in my life, despite being a cultural Christian until my mid 20s. My desires and habits have changed dramatically. My perspectives on many things have changed. And it’s great that I have more years of life experience behind me to reflect on the ways God has always been the author of my life, protecting me, bringing people in, taking people away, replacing things and opportunities I thought were best with better (Romans 8:28). I’m thankful for the seeds people planted within me, knowingly and unknowingly.

I’m thankful for a close friend who experienced homelessness with me in the streets of LA, witnessing the start of my drift from Christ. I realized for almost a decade she was praying for me the whole time, and I know her prayers, along with others, helped me come back home to Christ. God has shown me a lot of favor since then (Luke 15:11-32), and I’m loving this opportunity to share my blessings and pray for others.

“More Than A Friend” was the first beat I finished in my new home.

Stream “More Than A Friend”