Discovering God’s Heart Through Your Song

Written by Kristen Gardner

As worshipers and songwriters, we are given the unique opportunity to bring forth a sound that no one else will.

Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly”. - Romans 12:6

I have experienced a lot of difficulty in my song writing because of my fear of “getting it wrong.” Every line that I wrote was placed under a microscope of my own perfection. I was afraid that it would never be good enough and that no one would ever want to hear my music. I even thought that God would never want to hear my music.

The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, right? Well he also wants to do everything in his power to stop you from singing out your own song. He knows the Almighty God that lives in you and he’s afraid. I know deep in my soul that I was born to worship and to study music. And what I’m called to do is the very thing that the enemy continuously tries to take from me.

I started taking guitar lessons at 14 because I was inspired by an old 12 string guitar that we had in my house growing up. I trained for four years with a local teacher and focused on classical guitar. I was preparing to apply to college for a Bachelors in guitar performance with hopes of playing all around the world in orchestras and on worship teams.

The year I started to really bunker down and perfect my musical pieces for the audition was the year where I broke mentally. I struggled with physically shaking whenever I played guitar for someone, and it made me feel like a failure. At 17 years old I took a master class in a group setting where I was second to last to perform because of the difficulty level of my piece. When it came time for me to play, I shook the entire time and missed at least 60% of the notes. When I finished, I looked up with tears in my eyes and I apologized to everyone. I was humiliated. The instructor tried to comfort me said it was okay and knew I was just nervous. “You wouldn’t attempt this music if you didn’t know what you were doing. Just keep playing for people!”.

Sadly, I didn’t take his advice. I got it into my head that I would never be good enough and I should just get a job and play for fun on the side since I couldn’t perform for others. I chose to move away the next year to attend school for Massage Therapy. My musical life started to spiral from there. I ended up selling my designated worship guitar; cut my classical guitar nails that I shaped every morning, and basically stopped playing while I was in school. It was a sad time in my life.

Fast forward eight 8 years. A lot happened in between those years that transformed my mind and the way I viewed myself, but I’d keep you here too long if I told you everything. The most important thing that happened to me was an encounter that I had when I was in an inner healing session at Morning Star. (I spent a year in their worship school in 2016) I discovered that as a child I felt like a disappointment to my parents and to the Lord. Since I was a “disappointment” why should I try or ever believe that someone would find me “good.” Let me tell you. Jesus showed up in that session.

In a vision I saw him walk into the room with a smile on his face. I knew right then and there that he wasn’t disappointed in me. The inner healing counselor mentioned that she heard the Lord call me by the name of Abigail. Which means “the Father’s joy.” He was calling me his pride and joy and I could barely believe it.

Song written by Kristen Gardner

I wrote a song shortly after this encounter that I named “Always Love”. No matter what I did or thought about myself, he continued to love me. I sang that song at our school’s graduation and I didn’t shake this time. Through his loving-kindness he drew me back to my guitar and worship. My perfection microscope is still slowly fading out of my music, but it certainly isn’t on the forefront anymore.

I truly wanted to fill this blog post with practical song writing tips and ways to use music theory to your advantage, but I felt the Holy Spirit lead in a different direction. Don Potter once said in a worship class that “You can teach talent, but you can’t teach heart.” He was stressing to us that it was more important to work on your heart before you work on your skill. God is after your heart first and foremost, and that’s what my little 17-year-old heart needed to hear.

Now, I’m not encouraging you to just write without cause or not care about the technical side of song writing. God has called us to be skilled in our craft, and that takes diligence, practice and quite a few tears. But relationship with God is the most important ingredient to your songwriting. He provides you with all that you need, and you can trust that your diligence and practice will not go to waste. This does not just apply to worship music! You may be called to pop, folk, rock, metal, electronica, or orchestras! No matter what someone might tell you, remember that God lives in more than one genre. And lastly, God longs to hear the songs he’s placed inside of you, and only you carry the anointing to bring them forth.