Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Well, the thing is that we're just a group of friends from a little town in Texas that started a band
and we still play in James' garage.
And, uh, that's how everything started.
And we played with the bands in our town and they were so much better than us.
It was ridiculous. I can't believe they let us open for them.
But what happened was an amazing thing, you know? God did an amazing thing
and all we did was say - one day we woke up and we said, "Okay, God...
What do You want to do? What do you want to do with my life?
Individually, we all had that experience at one point or another. And He brought us here.
And I never believed in this.
My mother was a musician with six kids - a single mom with six kids and a musician.
To me in my head as a kid, a musician equals 'poor' because we were reallly poor.
And I thought, "I'll never do that! Because there's nothing in that. I want to be a doctor or something.
And the thing was that, um, I just can't believe that as one kid in a family of six in a big town in Arlington Texas -
that God looked all over the world, and looked into the United States,
and looked into Texas, and looked into our apartment complex - our one room efficiency apartment -
and He looked at me and He said, "You! I want to use you."
But the thing is that's not so special because He has a plan for everybody here.
It's all a matter of whether you answer it when He calls you.
And what we want to say is that as incredible as it is that we're up here and all you people are out there
having a great time to the music that we wrote in our bedroom,
that we are no different from anybody here. We are not any better than anybody here
We're just amazingly grateful for an amazing God who does amazing things.
It was so cool when Franklin asked us to do this.
I wanted to meet him and I wanted to hear his heart.
Because what's happened, when we've toured,
we've toured with Korn, we've toured with Stone Sour,
we've toured with Deftones, we've toured with Staind, and Disturbed.
And we've toured with all these bands because those kids are like - they listen to music that they want to feel.
They want to know it's honest. They want to know it's ok that life is messed up sometimes and I'm mad about it and I can express that.
They want to hear somebody honest who has been through what they've been through and they can scream about it.
There you are.
And what's so sad is that so many of those kids, they go to these concerts
and feel connected with other people around them
because they say, "This dude beside me likes this band too because he's been through the same things and he gets it! He gets it!"
And there is this brotherhood and unity because you have all been through something so hard, and something so crazy - and you are all so connected because of that.
And that's why we want to tour with those bands because we want
we want to say, "We get that!"
I was an atheist until I was sixteen years old
and my one job in the world was to tell everybody why it was so stupid to believe in God.
That's what I felt like my life's purpose was.
And at sixteen years old, I decided because -
as an atheist, it's easy to do this - I got down a lot, I still do.
But this was like a really deep, deep depression I was in -
and a lot of crazy, bad things were happening around me and I piled it on top
of each other just like I do when I'm depressed.
I pile all the bad things on top of each other
I didn't want to wake up anymore. I just said I'm done. I'm done. I don't want to wake up anymore
and I planned to commit suicide that night.
And I'm just tired of crying myself to sleep at night
and if there's no God,
then there's no point to any of this bad stuff.
So long as life's going good it's fine, but when it gets bad, there's no point in keep suffering.
If you don't believe in God, there's no point to it all.
And what happened was that - it was amazing! I woke up the next day
and I had planned to go through my day and then commit suicide that night.
And from the time I woke up to the time that I went to bed that night,
God of the universe miraculously chased me down and proved to me that He existed,
that He knew my name, that He knew my life, that He'd been there the whole time,
and that He loved me and wanted me to do something else.
He wanted me to do something with my life.
And this wasn't my idea.
I didn't ask to be born.
I didn't ask to go through the things I went through. I didn't ask to be born into the family I was in.
But God knew why He did that!
And if I hadn't been, I wouldn't have one song to sing up here.
I wouldn't have anything to share. I wouldn't relate to anybody going through anything.
And the reason why we do this and keep on, is because so many kids say,
"Your music helped me through this time."
And if we didn't have those people,
we wouldn't keep doing this.
It's amazing that that's what music can do.
And God let me go through so much stuff that I could come out of it.
He could save my life from suicide and say,
"I love you. That's not what I want! I don't want you to die tomorrow!"
" I want you to live tomorrow for the first time!"
"I want you to live for the first time tomorrow."
And that's exactly what happened.
It was miraculous.
There are people here tonight -
there are people here tonight that feel the exact same way.
You've had the exact same situations.
You've had to deal with way too much for your age.
And you never got to have a father, or anybody protective over you -
to love you - and to show you love. So, you never believed in God's love because you never experienced it in life.
And that's what's so amazing is that God is so close right now.
He brought you here on purpose.
And all He wants to tell you is that He loves you.
He wants you to know He loves you.
He's seen everything you've went through.
He's there when you cry yourself to sleep at night.
And He loves you.
And you're trying to carry everything in your life by yourself!
And you are falling under the weight of it.
But that was never God's intention.
He doesn't want you to carry it yourself.
You can't do it! Only God can do that.
And that's what He says, He says, "I never meant for you to go through this by yourself.
"I want to go through it with you. I want to carry it for you."
And so tonight, we sing this song as a 'Thank you.'
Because we didn't do this. This was amazing.
There are lots of bands out there that struggle so hard to make it and all the doors just flew open,
and we just thanked Him everytime. And here we are.
And this was His idea.
And so we just thank Him with this song.
And we want you to know that God loves you.