Hiding Place: An 8-Day Devotional By Tori Kellyनमुना

PSALM 42 

When I was a little girl I received Jesus as the treasure of my heart. The problem I have dealt with throughout my journey, though, is that there were times when he wasn’t my only treasure. His biggest competition was perhaps the greatest gift he gave me - music. Like a child who loves the candy more than the mom who bought it for her, so my heart was set on music more than the creator of it. Ever since I can remember I have wanted to be a singer and was told I’m good at it. I even had my first record deal when I was 12 years old. I got a taste of what it was like to have people hear my music and love me for it. It felt as if the world was offered to me on a silver platter. Promise after promise made my desires grow like weeds, and music quickly took the place of my first love. Jesus never left me, and I still valued him throughout my childhood, but his voice often became a distant echo behind the applause and cheers of a crowd. 

Just a couple years later, it felt like my dream of a music career was ripped out from under my feet. Certain people did not believe in me, the record deal fell apart, auditions were met with rejection, and every new record label I met with all had different reasons to not sign me. This went on for years, as the dreams and hopes of a young girl seemed to be shattered. All of the promises that I held onto from musical success, and the tendency to make it my whole identity, left me in a dry place. Being thirsty for joy, as Jeremiah put it, I “sinned in two ways - rejected God, the spring of living water, and tried to collect water in cracked and leaking pits dug in the ground” (Jer. 2:13, CEV). Left in this desert of unfulfilled dreams, God met me there and slowly led me to grasp that, before anything else, I am first his daughter. 

It took some time, but slowly I found peace in letting go of music as my first identity. Since then some of my biggest musical dreams have actually come true. Even though the battle of identity will always continue, a chain was broken by God’s grace. It is more clear than ever before that “all this world won’t ever satisfy,” and I am reminded daily how desperately I need him in my life. 

The object of our deepest desires is God himself; our thirst was made to be quenched by him; “as the deer pants for the water, so our souls thirst for God.” Yes, all good gifts are from his hand, but may we never trade the ocean for droplets of water.