Live the Life (CD)

<I>Live The Life</I> Music Video

<i>Love Me Good</i> Music Video

It's Time to Be Bold
By Michael W. Smith

If you had looked in my Nashville apartment window that night in September of 1979, you would have thought I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown. Sprawled out on the kitchen floor for three hours, I had completely lost it. I'd hit the wall emotionally and spiritually. I was empty and confused, and had never felt so alone. Literally shaking with despair, I cried out for help. And God showed up in my kitchen. He brought healing and hope, and I haven't been the same since. He is the best thing that's ever happened to me. And thanks to Him, the next best thing was just a year and a half around the corner.

After spending most of a year being nurtured back to spiritual health and playing keyboards for the group Higher Ground, I signed my first songwriting contract with Paragon/Benson Publishing Company. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I was knocking down $200 a week to do something that I loved. Writing songs for a living meant I didn't have to wait tables anymore, or work at Coca-Cola, or plant shrubs with a landscaping company.

I thought my life had peaked and God didn't have to do anything else for me. I wasn't looking for a record deal, a higher salary, or even a girlfriend-and especially not a wife. Writing music, I was as content as I'd ever been, and I labored at it sixteen hours a day. Then one afternoon while I was working in my office, Deborah Kay Davis walked by.

I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. When she passed by, it was all over for me. I was blown away. Totally head over heels in love. I frantically picked up the phone and called my mother in West Virginia.

"Mom, I can't believe it. You're not going to believe this, Mom. I just saw the girl I'm going to marry."

"What's her name?"

"I don't know, Mom. I haven't met her yet. But I gotta go. I'll find out and call you back."

My poor mother! She must have thought I'd lost my mind. But I'd never been so clearheaded in my life.

I left my office and went searching for this girl in the warehouse. Sherlock Holmes couldn't have done a better job of tracking her down, and eventually I found myself standing outside the ladies' restroom, waiting for her to emerge. She walked out. I introduced myself. We were engaged three and a half weeks later-and married four months after that!

If we had believed the doctors who told my wife that she'd never be able to have children because of her anorexia as a teen, then the third best thing that ever happened to me would not have. Not long after we married, Debbie and I went to our pastor for advice. He gathered the elders of the church around us and prayed for a miracle: If it was God's will, He would allow us to have a child. Do we believe in miracles? We have five of them.

I love being a husband and a father. It's harder than I ever knew it would be, and sometimes I fail at both roles. Yet I can tell you one thing for sure: There is nothing more important to me than my family. I probably get my extraordinary love for my wife and kids from my mother. She knew very little about healthy family relationships as a child. At age seven, she was abandoned (along with her brother and two sisters) on a neighbor's doorstep. Separated from one another for seven years, each child lived with a different relative.

Finally, when Mom was fourteen, all four kids were reunited with their father, who moved the whole tribe to West Virginia. I'm sure that somewhere in the process of being shifted around, my mother made a decision that when her time to marry and raise children came, one motto would describe her life: Family rules! I feel the same way.

It seems to me that when two people decide to have children, they make another decision as well: to spend time with those children. I get a little frustrated when people talk to me about my "music ministry." Music is not my ministry. Don't get me wrong. God has used the music to touch people's lives. Music, though, is primarily my vocation. My ministry is driving my kids to school in the morning, reading books to them while they sit on my lap by the fireplace, listening to their prayers at bedtime, and taking their mother on dates. Being a husband, a father, and a friend is my ministry. Entertainment is what I do for a living; "family" is what I am.

That's why I try very hard to keep my career from overshadowing my time with Deb and the kids. We try to go on vacations together, far from phones and fax machines. I love taking my girls on "dates" and spending one-on-one time with my boys. When I see how God is making each of my kids into a unique individual, I'm just blown away.

Creativity is important to me as a musician. I often feel a kind of spiritual rush when the idea for a new song drives me to the keyboards. But a deeper sense of accomplishment, and oneness with God, wells up within me when I really focus my attention on my children. Maybe we come closest of all to knowing our Creator God when He works through us to create a new life. There's nothing more important than family.

Away from Home, Alone

One incident that underscores the importance of my family happened on a family vacation, when Whitney, our oldest daughter, was five years old. It's still difficult for me to tell this story, but it made me appreciate the gut-wrenching anxiety that Mary and Joseph felt when they left their son behind on a return trip to Galilee. Our "Galilee" was a beach house in Destin, Florida. We were vacationing with my brother-in-law, his wife and four children, and Deb's parents and grandparents.

Driving two vans crammed full of kids, we had just returned from a little carnival fifteen minutes down the highway. After everybody piled out and rumbled up to the house, someone yelled, "Let's go down to the beach and catch some crabs!" A few minutes later, armed with my tiny net and trying to keep track of a half dozen crab-catching kids by the seashore, I looked around and realized that one was missing.

"You guys . . . anybody seen Whitney?" I shouted, not very worried because she was known to crash pretty early.

"She must have gone to bed," my brother-in-law offered, but I wasn't satisfied. I walked briskly back to the house and found her bed empty. Trying not to betray my anxiety, I told Deb. Together, we searched the grounds immediately but with no success. Whitney was not in the house. She was not on the beach. Whitney was lost.

"She rode back in your van, didn't she?" Deb asked her sister, the panic rising. "No, we thought she was with you," came the awful reply.

Unless you've experienced it, there's no way to understand the fear that parents feel when they discover that a child is lost. The light quiver in your stomach gives way to a hardened knot deep inside, and your whole central nervous system goes on alert.

There are probably two common fears that make a play for your mind during a crisis like ours. One is a paralyzing fear that renders you useless and almost comatose. The other is an energizing fear with its adrenaline rush that throws you headlong into the search. Ours was the second kind.

Calculating that we'd left Whitney back at the carnival at least forty-five minutes earlier, Deb and I bolted to the van. An instant later we were hurtling down the highway. Finding it almost impossible to give serious attention to anything except finding my daughter, stop lights and speed limits became the enemy and prayer our only weapon.

"Please forgive us, God!" I cried, burying the accelerator. "I can't believe we left our little girl."

"We trust You, Lord," Debbie prayed. "Protect her and may Your peace reign in her heart right now. Lord, please let us find her. Let her be there."

My mind was racing faster than our van, anticipating the worst, but hoping for the best. Has she been kidnapped? Has some pervert picked her up? Is she alive? An eternity later, we squealed to a stop in the carnival parking lot. No sooner had I opened the van door than a man appeared.

"Are you looking for a little girl?" he asked.

My heart was in my throat. "Yes!" I stammered.

He pointed to a gift shop and said, "She's right over there." I ran toward the tiny building, not knowing what condition I'd find her in. You can imagine my relief when I spotted my little blonde princess contentedly licking a grape snow cone.

She was in the company of a gift shop attendant who had found her, known enough about kids to buy her a treat, and reassured her with the words, "Your mom and dad will be right back for you." Then he settled in to wait for us to recognize our loss and return.

Deb and I snatched our daughter up and began to cry and hug her. After I thanked the kind man (one of the angels God assigned to watch over my family?), I bent down and took a closer look at Whitney. Was she really all right? Or was there some deep, emotional damage from being left behind? Whitney doesn't talk much, so she just crinkled up her grape-stained face and gave me that "What are you guys so excited about?" look.

Debbie held Whitney in her arms all the way back to the beach. With tears streaming down my face, I found that delirious joy makes it almost as hard to drive as heart-rending fear. When we arrived at the house, I took my five-year-old aside and said, "Okay, Whit. When we go inside, everybody's going to act a little crazy because they love you so much, and they're happy that you're not lost anymore."

Then we went in and her relatives made a big deal over her safe return. And what did Whitney do? She stood there with her thumb in her mouth, wondering what all the commotion was for and probably wishing she could trade all the hugs and kisses for another grape snow cone.

I was so deeply moved that I could hardly speak. But I felt I had to do something. So I picked Whitney up and sat her on the kitchen counter. I got on my knees and put my head on her lap, just content to be near the one God had restored to us. Maybe we love better what we've almost lost. Just then, Deb's grandfather (A. V. Washburn to the rest of the world, but affectionately known as Boom-Pop to us) said, "I think we need to thank the Lord." We all bowed our heads immediately.

"Lord, how we thank you for answering our prayers today . . ."

As he continued his prayer, choked up with emotion, tiny puddles of tears began to form all over the family room. It was a precious moment that I know I will never forget. There is nothing more important than family.

The View from the Father's Throne

After the crisis with Whitney, I think I understand Psalm 103:13 better. "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him." When my daughter was lost, she was all I could think about. God feels that same way about you and me.

Maybe I have a new feel for the Father's side of the cross now. It used to be that when I thought about the Crucifixion, I pictured Jesus, beaten, bloodied, and nailed to a tree. But where was God the Father when His Son was being crucified? If He was looking on from heaven, you can be sure that He had white knuckles from gripping the arms of His throne.

The day before His death, Jesus told His closest friends that He would be murdered and that each one of them would betray Him. Of course, they denied it and pledged Him their loyalty. Jesus knew better and simply replied, "Yet I [will not be] alone . . . for my Father [will be] with me" (John 16:32). But the very next day, hanging for six hours between heaven and hell, He realized something that had never happened before. Because He took our sins upon Himself, it looked like His Father had turned away from Him. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). Those words must have pierced God's heart like cold steel.

Now if I was willing to sacrifice anything to rescue my Whitney, what must God the Father have felt on the dark afternoon His Son was crucified? I guess the more basic question is, why did He even allow it? It must be that He would do anything to bring us into His family. He turned away from His Son because He wouldn't turn away from us. He loves us that much.

Chances are, you're going through some struggles that might be keeping you from understanding His love for you. Maybe I can help to "lead you home."

Live the Life

Learn how to forgive each other. "Watch out that no bitterness takes root among you, for as it springs up it causes deep trouble, hurting many . . ." (Heb. 12:15 tlb).

A strong family is usually made up of good forgivers. We've probably done more damage by giving in to bitterness than all the other family problems put together have caused. Most of us know how it feels to be betrayed, but we don't know much about how to forgive. Maybe it's too easy to forget the times we've needed someone to forgive us.

I think Mark Twain was right when he said, "Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in." None of us deserves His love. He just loves us because He does.

Besides, blaming someone else for our unhappiness is such an incredible waste of time. The only thing that blame ever accomplished in my life was to take the attention off me when I was looking for a reason to explain my own depression. I'd have been better off dealing with me.

Blaming parents for your looks, brothers and sisters for your sadness, and friends for your loneliness is a worthless dead end. Forgiving them all could be the first step in finding real peace with yourself. I'll never forget the story of a young guy who left home after a huge fight with his parents in his junior year of high school.

Months later he felt awful about the things he'd done and decided to forgive his parents for the angry words they'd spoken to him. But he still had a problem. Even though he'd forgiven them, he was pretty sure they would never let him come home.

Too ashamed to ask their forgiveness in person, he wrote a letter and apologized. He told them he would be driving by the house some time on Saturday and if they would forgive him and he could return, they should hang the blue sheet from his bed on the clothesline as a sign.

That Friday night, his mother went to her laundry room and began a labor of love. When Saturday afternoon came, the boy drove past, wondering what their answer was. What he saw was every sheet in the housed dyed blue and hanging from the clothesline! That is exactly how God feels about us and the way we should treat each other.

Don't be afraid to express your love to each other. "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love" (Gal. 5:6).

In "Give It Away," I sing the words:

A father lived in silence, saw his son become a man.
There was a distance felt between them
'Cause he could not understand
That love isn't love 'til you give it away.

Between family members, there is no monster like silence. It grows even faster than your kids, filling first a heart, then a home, and then a family history. That's why we voice our love for one another a lot at our house. No one should have to make it through a whole day without hearing that he or she is loved.

I know you can say "I love you" so often that you cheapen its meaning, but from my experience, saying it too little is the more common problem. I think that if we discovered we had only five minutes left to say all we wanted to say, every phone line in America would be jammed with people calling members of their families to tell them of their love.

"Give It Away" continues with the lyrics,

We can entertain compassion for a world in need of care,
But the road of good intentions doesn't lead anywhere.
'Cause love isn't love 'til you give it away,
You got to give it away.

So enough with good intentions. Today tell those in your home who need to hear it that you love them. Be generous in expressing your love to others because it is the one treasure that multiplies by division. Give it away, splash it all over, empty your pockets, and tomorrow you'll have more than ever.

Don't take yourself too seriously. "The joy of the Lord is your strength" (Neh. 8:10).

Solomon showed his wisdom when he said, "I commend the enjoyment of life" (Eccles. 8:15). Satan may tremble when we pray, but I think he takes off when we laugh at ourselves. I remember the time my sister, Kim, and I drove back to Nashville from West Virginia in stony silence. We'd had an argument over something stupid, and our anger grew with each passing mile.

It's not my way to keep my emotions bottled up for long, so eventually my frustration got the best of me. I picked up my half-filled can of Coke and, with an attitude, tried to throw it out my window. Instead, the misguided can glanced off the window frame and the syrupy pop exploded all over me, Kim, and the inside of her car.

We immediately glared at each other, thought about the situation for a second, and burst into laughter. The enemy was gone. We were friends again.

The next time you're tempted to take yourself too seriously, consider my seven-year-old friend, Ashley, who suffers from aplastic anemia. If she catches a cold, it could prove fatal. Instead of choosing a trip to Disney World through the Make-a-Wish Foundation, she asked to spend a day with me. She stole my heart the moment I saw her shyly following her two lively brothers through my front door. Her curly hair and pudgy face framed the most radiant smile I'd ever seen.

Later that afternoon, with her clutching my arm as we rode through the barn on my four-wheeler, I made a resolution. Whenever I started to feel sorry for myself, I would try to remember Ashley. You'd be wise to do the same, and remember: Every time you consciously laugh in the face of trouble, every chance you have to think about the good things in your life, you bring the smiles of children like Ashley back to earth to warm us for a while.

Get back to the basics. "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you" (Ps. 73:25).

In the movie City Slickers, a tough but wise old wrangler named Curly gave citified Mitch some hard-earned advice:

"You city slickers, none of you get it," accused Curly. "Do you know what the secret to life is?" he drawled.

"No, what?" asked Mitch.

"This," replied the cowboy, raising one finger in the air. "One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that, and everything else don't mean manure."

"That's great," said Mitch. "But what's the one thing?"

Curly measured the thirty-nine-year-old cowboy wanna-be and replied, "That's what you gotta figure out."

A key word in getting back to basics is simplify. With a schedule like mine, I could get caught up in the whirlwind pace that jet-setters keep, but it would be the end of me. You see, Mitch might not have figured out what that one thing is yet, but I have. It's loving God first, and then taking care of my family and friends. Maybe it's time for you to concentrate on just one thing yourself.

Recommit yourself to caring for one another. "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins" (1 Pet. 4:8).

I suppose being taken for granted could be a kind of backhanded compliment. It probably means that someone feels comfortable enough around you that sometimes they forget you're there. But recently I've been trying to practice an attitude of gratitude for those I love-especially my wife.

Debbie is my best friend, a great mom to our kids, and the perfect mate for me. She's easygoing and laid-back, while sometimes getting me to sit still is like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. She's one of the least materialistic people I've ever met. Soon after her graduation from Wheaton College, she opened a nutrition clinic for a poor neighborhood in Haiti, living there for almost a year. She could live in a shack and be content. I admire her for that.

Deb doesn't need much, but I need her. I'm in love with her not only romantically, but spiritually as well. Having loved Jesus since childhood, she's deeply sincere about her faith and has been a steady inspiration to me.

In fact, I'm thinking of her when I sing "The Other Side of Me":

If they were to write about
The story of my life,
They would have to mention you
With every page they'd write. . . .
Always love me-Never leave me now.
Now you are the other side of me

I've observed Debbie through the years and have decided that no one has a tougher job than a mother. Men want to improve the world. Mothers want to improve the whole family. Fathers teach us what we should become. But mothers teach us who we are. Deb has taught me that "I" doesn't have to be capitalized. Always concerned about others, she's a living love letter directly from God to me. Who she is reminds me that being a husband, a father, and a friend is not my job; it's my life.

In many ways, our family is no different from yours. We have problems and heartaches just like everyone else. But we're learning how to forgive, how to laugh at ourselves, and how to get back to the basics. And most of all, we're learning that no matter what happens, we're committed to caring for each other.

I believe it's what goes on inside the walls of your home that determines how much you're going to influence people on the outside. If you want to be serious about being bold and living out your faith in the world, home is the best place to start.

If you want to get to the soul of Michael W. Smith, all you have to do is listen to his songs. Throughout his Christian life Michael has faced a host of trials and joys and almost every one has found its way into his music.

"I've failed so many times that I've come to a point of not being afraid to write about it … You tend to write better songs when you just embrace life and experience some tough times," he said.

It is this vulnerability, this touch of real life, that has won Michael the devotion of fans around the world and has firmly established him as one of America's top Christian artists.

Music has been in Michael's heart and life since his childhood in the small town of Kenova, West Virginia. Though his early aspirations were focused on baseball, even as a child Michael was busy making up songs. He gave his life to Christ when he was 10 years old and his tight-knit family nurtured this young faith.

"I was extremely fired up. I wore a big wooden cross around my neck and carried a Scofield Bible," he told CCM Magazine. "In Kenova, a town of 5,000 people, we were extremely sheltered, but there were like 75-80 people in our youth choir. For a small town we were way ahead of our time."

As he grew older, however, his path strayed.

"When I got near graduation, that support group of mine went off to school or got married … Then I think I just got deceived and believed in a lie that I was missing out on the good times… All of a sudden I'm in the party scene."

Alcohol and drugs began to take center-stage in his life.

"Even on Sunday, I'd go out and smoke a joint in the afternoon and let it wear off - or thought it wore off - and show up Sunday night and play piano for the choir. When you're really deceived and feeling kind of lost, it's like you're trapped and you can't even think."

It was in the midst of this confusion that Michael made a decision that would forever alter the course of his life and eventually touch millions of people. After a semester of college, Michael took a step into the unknown and followed his dreams all the way to Nashville, Tenn.

With only his parents' beat-up Chevrolet, Michael had little more than hope to buoy him up in his quest for musical success, yet somehow that was enough. Before his career could take off, however, he had to find his way back to God.

Though mired in a lifestyle of drugs and excess, Michael could still hear God's still, quiet voice beckoning him back. It took a near-nervous breakdown, however, to make him listen. The guilt and waste of his wild life came crushing down on him one night and Michael remembers spending hours crying and shivering on his kitchen floor. That night he called out to God and set his feet on a new path, one that he hasn't strayed from since.

The next day a call came that a Christian band named Higher Ground needed a piano player, and Michael's renewed life in Christ began at full swing. His career started to flourish as more and more artists, including Amy Grant, Bill Gaither and Kathy Trocolli began to record his songs.

Following a stint as Amy Grant's sidekick on piano, Michael released his own debut album, Michael W. Smith Project in 1983 and the rest is history.

Now, ten albums and two Grammy awards later, Michael is poised to release a new album, tentatively titled "Live the Life," after the rousing anthem he penned for DC/LA '97. This newest release should be in stores in February and Michael is already confident that it will be a hit.

"The new record…don't know what it's called, but very different from "I'll Lead You Home." It might have a little "I 2 (eye)" in it if I had to compare it to anything. But much more aggressive," he said. "Wrote quite a few songs on the guitar and I'm playing guitar actually on this record…got a little edge. And I believe, if I can predict, that it's the best record I've ever done."

Fans can get a taste of Michael's newest enterprise in October from his "Live the Life" single. Michael first performed this song to the cheers of tens of thousands of teens on both coasts at the the DC/LA '97 youth rallies over the summer. The song is a call to arms for Christians to live their lives boldly for Christ and it seamlessly blends Michael's rich, smooth voice with the harsher chords of electric guitar.

While the rest of the details of his newest album have not yet been hammered out, there can be no doubt that it will be built in Michael's foundations of faith, family and the Lord.

We're passengers aboard the train
Silent little lambs amdist the pain
That's no longer good enough

And when its' time to speak our faith
We use a language no one can explain
That's no longer good enough
And God knows its a shame
'Cause if we look to pass the blame
We are not the worthy bearers of his name

(Chorus)
For the world to know the truth
There can be no greater proof
Than to live the life, live the life
There's no love that's quite as pure
There's no pain we can't endure
If we live the life, live the life
Be a light for all to see
For every act of love will set you free

There's something beautiful and bold
The power of a million human souls
Come together as one
And each, in turn, goes out to lead
Another by his word, his love, his deed
Now the circle is done
It all comes back to one
For it is He and He alone
Who has lived the only perfect life we've known.

(Michael W. Smith and Brent Boureous)