The Story Behind The Song | A Changed Man

Join Ray Slavens in this special 8-week series, The Story Behind The Song, as he shares the inspiration, Scripture, and life lessons behind some of the original songs he has been blessed to write.

Each episode takes listeners beyond the lyrics and into the stories that shaped them, from family legacies and personal faith journeys to seasons of struggle, redemption, hope, and God's unfailing grace.

We'd love to hear from you -- email us at ListenToShoesOff@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Shoes Off, a weekly podcast where we pause, take off what weighs us down, and take a step onto holy ground. Hey, welcome back to Shoes Off. Over the past several months, we've spent some time digging into scripture, through different series and asking tough questions and exploring what it means to follow Jesus in everyday life. And for the next few weeks, while we're taking this break, I just thought I'd do something a little different. Many of you know over the last year, and actually many years through my life, God has opened the door for me to write a lot of songs. And what started as a creative outlet became something much deeper. These songs became stories, they became reminders of God's faithfulness, they became opportunities to reflect on lessons learned through scripture, family, grace, and even, you know, just life itself. So for the next uh several weeks, maybe seven or eight weeks, I'm inviting you behind the music. The series is gonna be called The Story Behind the Song. And each week I'm gonna share a song that I've been blessed to write that God had given to me, and the story that inspired it, and the scripture that shaped it, and a devotion thought that I hope encourages you in your own walk with Christ as you listen to these through the week. Now these songs were just simply a doorway into bigger conversations about what God teaches us through life's experiences. Some of these stories are personal, and some involve my family. These are songs about faith and struggle and perseverance and even God's redemption. But every one of them points back to God and his faithfulness. And my prayer is that these conversations encourage you, they challenge you, and remind you that God is still writing stories today, including yours. So let's begin with a song that's very close to my heart. This is a song that's called A Changed Man. So when I wrote this song, there was just a thought that was on my heart that, you know, one surrender can change generations. And you maybe have an example in your life or your family where one grandma or grandpa made a decision, and then that changed the whole generation that followed. And when people hear the song, maybe they think it's about me, but after all, it you know, it is called a changed man. But the truth is the song starts long before I was born. It's about my grandfather. We called him Papal JJ, others note him as Jesse. But the song is also about my father, and it's a song of how one decision to follow Jesus can just change generations. And sometimes we think our choices only affect us, but they actually don't. The decisions we make today often become the realities of our children and our grandchildren. So the story behind the song, the song opens with my grandfather, Jesse, and this is his testimony, and he shared this with me many years when he was at the brink of you know making a decision in his life, and he was sitting in a Detroit alley where he worked at the time, and he was gonna take his life. And he went into a Detroit alley and with a bottle in his hand, and he was at the end of end of himself. There was no plan, there was no hope, there was no way forward, and yet that's where God met him. It wasn't in a church building, it wasn't in a revival service, it wasn't after he cleaned himself up. God met him right there in that alley, and that moment changed everything. And the song has a part in there that I wrote. It says one decision, one surrender, one moment, and his hands turned our whole family's page. And that's really the heart of the song, because when Papel Jesse surrendered his life to Christ, he had no way of knowing how far that decision would reach. And it makes me think about the scripture, 2 Corinthians 5 and 17, that says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old is passed away, and behold, the new has come. And that's exactly what happened to Papal Jesse in that Detroit alley. It wasn't perfection, God transformed him in his life, and that you know it just brings a thought that God specializes in new beginnings. I mean, one thing I love about scripture is that God repeatedly meets people at their lowest point. Just think about Moses. He was a fugitive, David was a shepherd boy, Peter was broken by failure, Paul was persecuting Christians, who was actually Saul, and then there's my grandfather sitting in an alley with a bottle in his hand. God has never required people to have their lives together before he changes them. All he asks is simply for us to surrender. And faith is often passed down through an example. I mean the second verse in this song that arose shifts to my own father, who married my mother as a Christian. He wasn't a Christian at the time. And later in life, my father goes to a revival service that at my grandpa's church that my grandpa pastored and was carrying burdens of his own. And just like you know, Papel JJ, he responds to God's call, and he was in a revival service, and the preacher preached, and what stands out to me isn't that he just accepted Christ, it's that he lived it. I grew up watching my father and his faith become visible. We went to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, and that alone just doesn't make us a Christian. But he was dedicated to raising his family and church. Now, my dad wasn't perfect, he wasn't flawless, he was just a real man. But I think that's how faith is often passed down from one generation to the next, not through perfection, but through consistency. In Deuteronomy 6 and verses 6 and 7, it says that these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your own children. Faith was always meant for us to be lived before it's actually taught. And you never know who your decision will impact. This is probably the biggest lesson that I think about the most. When Grandpa Jesse put that bottle down, he wasn't thinking about me. I was I wasn't even born at the time. He couldn't see future generations, but God could, in one surrendered life, influenced another, and then another, and then another, and now here I am telling the story about the power of a changed heart. Psalms 145 and 4 says, One generation shall commend your works to another. And that's the story of the song. I mean, one generation telling the next generation about God's faithfulness. And as I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate several things. I mean, my grandfather wasn't perfect, but I will tell you, Pavel JJ, if there was a perfect man outside of Jesus, now this is just to me. He was such a godly man. And my father wasn't perfect, and I'm certainly not perfect, but the common thread wasn't perfection, it was surrender. Each generation made a choice to follow Christ, and because they did, my life started on a different path than it otherwise would have. And that's why the final line of this song means so much to me. It says, I'm proud of the man I became. It's not because I did everything right, but it's because God's grace continued flowing through generations of imperfect people who simply said yes to him. So I'm gonna leave you with a few things before you listen to this song. Think about the people who shaped your faith. Who pointed you to Jesus? Who prayed for you? Who lived their faith in front of you, and then ask yourself what kind of spiritual legacy am I creating for the people who will come after me? Because someday, maybe one day, we'll tell a story about your faith the same way that I'm telling the story about my grandfather today. So enjoy the song, A Changed Man. It's amazing how a changed heart and a changed man changed the man that I became Grandpa Jesse in a Detroit alley, bottle in a shaking hand.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Rock bottom talking to a goodbye drink. Didn't have another plan. On that cold dark concrete with his back against the wall. He heard a still small voice say, Son, you don't have to fall. He said that whiskey, then fell on every place. From drops to the mother living water of the blazing place.