Don't do things to your body when you are young that you will regret when you are older. How many times did I hear that little piece of wisdom when I was a teenager or in my 20s and think to myself "I'm invincible. None of those bad side effects will ever happen to me. I've been doing this for years and haven't had one bad thing happen to me."
This is not a blog where I label and remember every bad thing I did when I was young. For that I would need a book. Suffice it to say I did them all, twice.
I did think I was invincible.
Then one day I got older and suddenly I discovered what Joan Jett was talking about when she named her 1984 album The Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth.
Apparently some of that stuff you did when you were young doesn't really hurt you, or affect you, until you get older and your body isn't able to protect you like it used to. I wish somebody had explained it to me. Better yet, I wish someone had said "this happened to me and it can happen to you. You may not pay now...but trust me...you'll pay for it someday."
But nobody did. Somehow I was just supposed to believe what everybody said. I'm not good at that.
Why didn't somebody tell me that if I abused certain substances it would affect my teeth and my liver and my kidneys and my joints? How come nobody tells you about the emotional and spiritual and psychological effects of abuse? How come nobody said that if I did it once I'd do it again and again and that it would lead to other, harder, more dangerous things, and that in the end I wouldn't know right from wrong and my moral compass would be so screwed up that I wouldn't be able to make wise choices about anything?
I'm a guitar player and I have to deal with joint pain and arthritis in my fingers that is partially the result of living a life without much thought of the future. My voice is permanently scared after years of subjecting it to abuse. There are days I can't walk because the gout in my toe is so bad that I want to take a hacksaw and remove it. I can no longer assimilate caffeine in any form. Recovery, from anything, is a day to day struggle no matter how many years you've been clean. Don't let anybody tell you that it goes away.
Now, thankfully, I follow a guy named Jesus who loved me enough to rescue me from all of that and to give me a second shot at life. I certainly haven't always given it my best shot and I've messed up a few times along the road (some privately, and some rather publicly), but Jesus doesn't seem to mind. He continues to love me and allow me to be part of his church.
That's the good part. That is what grace is all about.
The other part, the part that is more difficult, is living with the consequences of those earlier, selfish, dangerous choices. I am saved and forgiven but I'm also human and subject to the laws of cause and effect.
I hope young worship leaders read this and take it to heart. I've been a worship leader for almost 15 years now and every day has been a struggle, not because I don't love what I do - I do love it - but because I have to fight through so many physical and emotional and spiritual things that are the consequences of poor choices when I was young. I'm not saying my life would be perfect if I hadn't made bad choices. Nobody is perfect. I'm just saying it might have been a little easier.
I can't wait for heaven when I no longer have to live in this body or have the mental scars I have. In the mean time...I think I'll put my foot up...it's killing me again!
