Ep. 90 | I Trust in God | Louder Than Words

Listen in as Kaci Young shares today’s daily devotional featuring the song "Nothing Else." Let’s be Formed by The Word together!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Music has a unique way of touching the heart. A song can bring back a memory, lift our spirits, comfort us in a difficult season, or help us express what words alone cannot. That's one reason music has always been an important part of worship. Through the songs we sing, we celebrate God's goodness, declare his truth, and remind ourselves of his faithfulness. Over the past several weeks, we've been formed by God's Word as we've journeyed through Genesis. Over the next two weeks, while Pastor Eddie is away on a mission trip, several leaders from the Orchard Community Church will guide us through a special formed by the Word series called Louder Than Words. Together we'll explore the scriptures, truths, and personal stories behind some of the worship songs that have shaped our faith and encouraged our walk with Christ. Our prayer is that these devotions will help you listen more carefully to the songs you sing and deepen your appreciation for the God those songs celebrate. So wherever you're listening today, lean in and open your heart. The God who spoke in the beginning is still speaking today. Let's listen together.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Well, hello everyone. My name is Casey Young, and I'm so excited to be on here with you guys today. When I was asked to share a worship song that impacts my life, my mind immediately started racing because as a singer, you know, I always have a hundred different songs running through my head. And if you ask me what my favorite song is, I don't think that I could tell you just one song. Because so many songs that I love are tied to different seasons of my life, different things that I've walked through, whether they're celebrating times, whether they're hard times, difficult times, just times where what I was walking through lined up so deeply with what I was hearing and feeling in that song. So originally I had a different song picked out to talk about today, but a few weeks ago we sang a song called Nothing Else by Cody Carnes. And it's a song that we have done before here at the Orchard, but it has been a while since we had sang it. So honestly, I had forgotten about it. But I specifically remember that morning when we were going through the set list before the first service started, and Austin was leading the song. And I just in that moment, I just stopped and closed my eyes and was really listening to every single word of the song. And I just thought to myself, wow, I really forgot how powerful this song was. Through every single word, I was just imagining being at the feet of Jesus, pouring my heart out to him. And for you to understand why this song hit me so deeply in that moment, I just have to take you back through my life a little bit. So I grew up singing around North Central Florida. Music was my identity from a young age. And with that, I quickly learned the rules of the stage, you know, how to perform, how to project confidence. You learn how to capture the audience and how to make sure that you have the right look, you know, kind of fake it till you make it, kind of thing. So eventually that passion led me to Nashville and I wanted to pursue country music. So I went there with big dreams like everybody else and ready to work hard. So I spent a little time there with my friend Adam Sanders, who had been living there for a few years at this time. And he showed me around Nashville and he took me to visit his uncle's recording studio where we got to sit in on some sessions and with some really amazing songwriters and just listen to them record their songs. And long story short, God brought me back home. Leaving that dream behind felt like a massive failure to me at the time. But looking back, I see that it was all part of God's bigger plan. When I hear the song nothing else, I think of one word, surrender. And I'll be honest, surrender is a word that tends to make me feel a little uncomfortable because that means I have to be vulnerable. And if I'm being honest, vulnerability doesn't come easy for me. I tend to keep my guard up, so my instinct is to treat surrender like weakness. I thought admitting that it didn't work out meant I wasn't good enough or that I wasn't strong enough. For a lifetime, my worth had been tied to my performance and to keeping up appearances. So when I failed there, I broke. And honestly, I didn't know what to do with all those pieces. I didn't know how I was gonna pick them all up. But when I listened to the lyrics of this song, nothing else, like it just completely flipped the direction of surrender for me. It made me realize that spiritual surrender isn't about weakness at all. Honestly, it's actually courageous. And it takes a lot of strength to come to God and say, you know, I'm dropping my guard down. I'm stopping the performance. I'm not going to pretend that I have it all together anymore. I don't want to fake it till I make it. I want to be real and honest in everything that I have and just lay it all down. I realized that I had carried that industry mindset into my faith. I was treating my relationship with God like a country music showcase. And I was just showing up to try to have the look. I was trying to perform perfectly. I was trying to manage my image to make sure God saw how hard I was working. I was singing about God, but honestly, I don't know. I was just exhausted from trying to control my own outcome for my life. But man, looking back, that's why the lyrics in this song hit me so hard. When Cody Kern sings this verse, I'm sorry when I've just gone through the motions. I'm sorry when I've sang another song. Take me back to where we started. I open up my heart to you. When I heard those words, and every time I hear those words, they just break me down because going through the motions was exactly what I was doing. And then Cody hits the bridge with these incredible heavy words that will stop you in your tracks. He says, I'm sorry when I've come with my agenda. I'm sorry when I forgot that you're enough. And hearing that was a massive wake-up call for me because I realized that my prayers had just become a checklist and a giant to-do list for God. It was a transaction. And if I did my part, then I was expecting God to do his, you know? I was coming to him with my agenda, asking him to bless my plans. And it made me stop and realize just how exhausted I truly was trying to manage everything on my own. And I completely missed the point too. I had to finally surrender that I didn't want to play the performance game anymore. I didn't need a transaction. I just needed to learn to sit at his feet without asking anything from him. And honestly, it makes me think about the story in Luke where, you know, Martha is running around the house like a crazy woman. She's completely distracted, trying to perform, trying to make everything look perfect for Jesus. Meanwhile, her sister Mary is literally sitting right at Jesus' feet, just listening to him. And Martha gets upset and basically asks Jesus to tell her sister to get up and help. But Jesus stops and says to her, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about so many things, but only one thing is necessary. Mary chose the good part. And when we get so caught up in our own checklist, we end up acting just like Martha. We are so busy performing and trying to manage our own image that we completely miss Jesus standing right there. This song is just a reminder to get us back to that one thing, just sitting at his feet. It takes massive strength to stop the show, drop the microphone, and admit that you don't have it all together. You know, looking back, surrendering the dreams I had for myself wasn't a sign of my weakness. It was the moment I finally lifted my hands up to God to surrender the control that I thought I had over my life and to let down my guard. I knew that God had bigger plans for me. I knew that he had better plans for me. And I knew that he was going to allow me to experience something even better than I could have ever dreamed of and imagined. But in that moment, it was so hard for me to see just what those things were, you know? There's another part of the song that hits me incredibly hard. And it says, I'm not here for blessings. Jesus, you don't owe me anything. More than anything that you can do, I just want you. And that part of the song, those lyrics really force me to look at my own heart. I just realized how often I approached my faith with a sense of entitlement. And I think a lot of us tend to do that. It's just natural, I feel like, but I'm feeling like I performed well. If I did the right things and kept up the appearance, then God owed me a smooth path or a specific outcome. But you know what? True surrender changed that for me. It shifted my focus from what God could do for me to who God is to me. It meant accepting that even when a dream dies or life feels completely out of my control, that his presence is still enough. I didn't need to hustle for blessing anymore. I just needed to rest in the fact that I was already accepted. When we stop treating God like a vending machine, we finally find the peace that we have been running after the whole time. I think so many of us are carrying around the heavy weight of trying to perform, trying to manage our image and trying to fix our own lives. It reminds me of that verse, you know, in Matthew where Jesus says, Come to me, all of you who are tired and carrying heavy burdens, and I'll give you rest. That's exactly what this song is inviting us to do. It is just a call to drop the heavy weight that we were never supposed to be carrying on our own in the first place. Surrendering doesn't mean that you're giving up or that you're weak. It just means that we're finally tired of holding it all together on our own. It's an invitation to drop the act, open our hands, and trust that God's presence is exactly where our peace is. And so if it's okay with y'all, I would like to just close our time together in a quick prayer. God, thank you. Thank you that you don't just ask us to put on a performance. Thank you that you meet us right in the middle of our messy, broken stories. We confess that it is hard for us to be vulnerable and to let go of control. Right now, we open our hands, we lay down our personal agendas and our anxieties and our need to fix everything on our own, God. Help us to truly believe that your presence is enough for us today. We want you and nothing else.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Thanks for joining us today. We are so glad that you chose to spend a few moments with us in God's Word. If this episode has encouraged you, we ask that you leave us a review or maybe share this episode with a friend. Also, would you consider sending us a note to let us know what God is doing in your life? Pastor Eddie would love to hear from you. You can find this email in the show notes. Until next time, stay in the scriptures, keep following Christ, and allow your life to be formed by the Word.