My plans vs His

Proverbs 16:9: "A man's heart plans his way. but The Lord directs his steps."

When I initially started the process of creating this album, I had my own plan in mind. I have a few friends that are great producers. I could just hit them up, ask them to send me some beats, and take it from there. After they sent me the beats, the plan was to have some musicians take those beats, and play out the parts with live instruments. That sounded easy enough to me. The only problem with that, is that there was music in me that God wanted to come out, that would not have come if I would've followed my original plan. Perhaps my original idea may happen with another album, but that wasn't what God wanted this time around. Boy did I fight it though. I came up with every excuse in the book I could think of to stay with my original plan. I can't do that, I'm not a writer. I'm not that good of a producer. I'm just a guy that plays the sax. These were just some of the lies that I told myself at the beginning of this process, and that I almost convinced myself were true. My friend Ryan Jones, of the band Colorfair, even suggested several times, "why don't you just produce your own songs," and I would give him those same answers. Eventually he was able to get through to me. Once I finally conceded on my original plan, and said ok, I'll do this Your way, a flood of inspiration started to come, and it would come at some of the most random of times in the most random of ways. Now at the end of this project all of those things that I said I wasn't, I can now say that I am. No longer am I "just" a guy that plays the saxophone. I'm a writer, composer, producer, arranger, and more. This has easily been one of the greatest and most rewarding experiences of my life, creating this album, and I am so glad and thankful that I did it His way instead of mine.

Love Extravagant is available now on iTunes and Amazon