the difference between Potential and your Calling(s).

i've come to the conclusion that i'm allowed to be brutally honest on here to the point where i shouldn't be embarrassed nor ashamed. because if i'm going to go through something that painfully educates me, it'd be a shame to keep from you what it has taught me.

so here it goes.

the way America's Best Dance Crew happened for me was devastating. being the first crew to be eliminated in front of millions of people was embarrassing and birthed an enormous deficit in my confidence.

there. i said it.

to be honest, (and my crew knows this) i didn't want to audition for the show. we had decided to audition merely days prior to the audition date and i hate throwing things together last minute. feeling rushed. but they convinced me into auditioning and alas, they were right, we pulled it off and made it onto Season 5.

"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it." (Gen. 3:6)

that was the beginning of when i started living for my potential and not for my calling.

i'm not saying that ABDC was a horrible experience or that i am not extremely thankful for it! it was indeed quite the opposite. i do believe that God meets us where we are. that he listens to us and cares about the desires we have. that plays a big part in the love he has in giving us the ability to make our own decisions. but i also believe that just because i'm good at something, i.e. that i have the potential to do it and perhaps do it well, doesn't mean that i should or that it's the right decision.

ABDC is good. it's desirable. there are many things in life you will see and i'm sure have seen, that are pleasing to the eye, but that doesn't mean it's for you. and if you start making decisions based off of these qualities i've put in italics, you could very possibly find yourself sitting at the end of your bed one day wondering where God is in the decisions you've made.

ever since the show ended, i've been dancing for the wrong reasons. i've been dancing for other people. not for God's purposes. and please don't think i'm being an over-religious douche cock when i say that. what i mean is that i found myself at the airport trying to catch the red-eye for a Janet audition in NYC and didn't even want to go. Janet's great. she's famous and knows how to write songs about sex, but i didn't grow up revering her. i loved No Doubt, Garbage, Tom Petty. so since when did this whole switch happen? when did i get to a point in my talent to where Janet has to mean something to me and be the epitome of who a dancer wants to back-up?

something was radically wrong.

by chance, standby happened to bump me so many times that i wouldn't make it to NY in time for the audition, so came home. to write this.

what i'm saying is that what inspires people the most is when you know who you are and share it without shame and with joy. and it is my belief, that the more i spend time with God, the more i figure things out like that.

there is a freedom in not living for other people's expectations, nor your own. i fail people all the time and i fail myself. i'm sure if i ever meet you one day, i'll fail you. but i also know that if i find myself thinking that i've failed God, i'm wrong. we can never fail him. we can ignore him, we can sin against him, we can disappoint him. but we can never fail him. to fail God would go against the very essence of what Christianity is all about. that, my friend, is the Good News.