“Looking back, a few years ago, I never saw it coming,” began Landon Stewart. This is the guy who had never been too caught up in his flaws because he understood he wasn’t perfect. His God loved him and had a purpose for him and that was all that mattered. Until he slipped and the Devil got his grip. “I remember coming home on a particular Wednesday night from leading worship at youth group when thoughts just started racing through my mind,” Landon explained. Instead of normally ignoring them, he allowed the lies to remain long enough that he began to believe they were true. These lies told Landon that how he led worship that night wasn’t good enough and that he wouldn’t succeed in his purpose of music ministry he knew God was calling him to.

 

Over the next couple of weeks that lead to months and then years, he continued to put the reliability of his future in those lies along with many others. “I was becoming depressed,” he voiced. “The lies I had allowed to intervene inside of me soon impacted the outside.”  Most days you would find him in his room, eyes flooded with tears with an attitude of hopelessness. “My parents tried their hardest to get me through it by telling me that God had the perfect plan for my life and to trust him, but I just pushed them away,” Landon shared. He believed that he was a failure and that there was nothing anyone or anything could do to change it. Then he started to think that maybe there was a way to end the pain of disappointment through worldly pleasures which he quickly realized was not the answer. He got to the point where he was so tired of blaming himself for his imperfections that he started blaming God for the way he was made and for being in this situation. “I got so caught up in my own problems that I completely forgot to notice the good that God was doing in my life,” he expressed.

 

Then something amazing happened. Landon stopped fighting his old self. “I started by crying out to God that I was done living like I had been and was giving my life back to Him. I remembered the calling he gave me, and I started writing while the words poured out,” he excitedly added. He doesn’t remember the exact day, but he does remember the feeling of relief that came off his chest knowing that God had chosen him for a purpose as a Christian to build up His kingdom. Landon doesn’t want anyone to have to go through what he went through to realize that they have a God-given purpose. He believes that from what God has shown him over this experience is that everyone has a God-given purpose and that you just have to be willing to wait for it, accept it, and stick with it!