Vision Logo Circle
Vision Logo Circle

Focus on the Positives

by | Sat, Jun 12 2021

Text size: A- A+

Choosing to find positives in tough situations is a skill we’d all like to have—but sometimes there’s something even harder. Trusting God when life seems to be changing so fast we don’t even know if we want to keep up.

Joel Vaughn, Christian pop-rock artist, took some time with the Vision180 team to reflect on trusting God in the face of adversity and unease. He drew attention to the immense changes in his life the Covid-19 pandemic brought. ‘[Covid] totally cancelled all of our tour-dates, so the way we made ends meet went away completely,’ Joel shared. ‘Luckily for me, I work part-time at a church, and I spent more time investing in the ministry than I did when I was out on the road. So it was like, “okay, I can’t do what I used to do, but I can pivot and really focus on things that matter here”…it’s hard to make it from day-to-day if you don’t focus on the positives.’

Stress and anxiety had followed Joel for the last few years. They’d impacted the production and release of a new album he was working on. ‘Last year I was so busy between my part-time job and being out on the road I was wondering how I was ever going to finish the album,’ Joel remembered. ‘You look to the mountain situation in your life and go, “God, how am I going to do this?” It’s overwhelming.’

‘But that’s also kind of where the song, Already Done, came from… I was sitting outside with my family one day and I got a text from a friend of mine, Jonathon, and he had been working on a song with this other guy, and he sent me this idea… and I was like, “This is where I’m at right now. I feel like there’s mountains in my way that are immovable, and the devil is just laughing at me.” And so I called him back… within a couple of days, we had finished the song together.’

What we feel we’ve been called to do can feel like it’s been taken away, but it really hasn’t. It’s just been changed. God is allowing us to do it differently than what we’ve done in the past

Joel reminds us that we never know how we’re ministering to people, right when they need it. ‘Sometimes people don’t realise that when you bring a song to someone, it ministers to them, too. That song ministered to me… it was one of the most encouraging things I had heard in a long time, and not just because I was part of it.’

He was reminded of Matthew 17:20, where the Bible says, ‘He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there.’ And it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”’ Imagine what we could do if we lived with that level of faith every day?

We might feel that in certain situations our calling in God’s ministry is removed completely. Joel’s words can inspire us, though, as he reminds us, ‘What we feel we’ve been called to do can feel like it’s been taken away, but it really hasn’t. It’s just been changed. God is allowing us to do it differently than what we’ve done in the past.’

Life throws unexpected situations at us, and it can easy to feel weighed down by the heaviness around us. But Jesus Himself tells us that, with faith, we can shift those immovable mountains in our lives. If we’re obedient to God, and allow ourselves to trust in Him completely, we will see miracle upon miracle in our lives.

Listen to Louder Than Lies below

_____________________________________________