by David Dodd

In terms of God’s Sovereignty, Jadon Lavik saw it first hand in high school, and the Lord’s work in his life took him out of a future in major league baseball and into a parking lot of Rick Warren’s purpose-driven church where he was offered the opportunity to play on the worship team.  That was only the beginning.

 “Yeah, it’s pretty mind-blowing when I look back on it,” Jadon tells Apostles That Rock.  “I always had an immense fear of being in front of people or public speaking or performing or any of that stuff.  In college, if I had to do any kind of speech, man, my stomach was in knots all morning, you know, so I never looked for outlets to express my music in front of other people, it was always a real personal thing.  But the moment I surrendered that and gave that up to the Lord and said, ‘You know God, if you want to use this You’re going to have to take this fear away and allow me to do this, normally.’  The moment I surrendered that He began to put me in situations that I was not prepared for and yet at the same time, grew out of.  This is one of the situations; I was in front of thousands of people having little to no experience ever performing in front of a live audience and literally overnight, so it was definitely getting thrown into the fire and there was a huge refining process through that.”  

‘You know, that’s something I struggle with and it’s not necessarily something that I’ll attain but it’s a constant goal we strive for.  I just think it’s a mindset, it’s a shifting of our nature, and just knowing that, ‘God, this is how I want to be, this is how I want to live in everything that I do, whether it’s the mundane, whether it’s the glamorous, whatever You call me to do, God, I want to do it for Your glory ultimately knowing that’s what’s going to bring joy and have significance.’ 

That’s what we strive for but by no means do we necessarily attain that.  You hear people say oh man, you’re humble or something like that and you hear that too many times and the next thing you know, you’re not.  It’s one of these deals that we’re always struggling with and that’s just how it is, so hopefully we get to the point where we can honestly say at the end of the day, ‘God I did that for you, me aside.’  That’s the goal for me in what I do musically and what I do non-musically.’

One of Jadon’s most personal reflections in songwriting came when he penned the song, Father: 

“It’s a song that’s actually about gratitude and thankfulness for God’s answered prayer and His provision through His Sovereignty in my life and the gratefulness that I have for who He is and what He’s done.  It’s kind of a praise type song but at the same time it’s real personal to me in the sense that as I look back through the experiences in my life and to see how God has orchestrated those to where we’re at today and where He’s leading it’s just overwhelming. 

It’s neat when you look back onto experiences and see how God has done those kinds of things in our lives and we have a heightened gratitude and amount of gratefulness for what He’s done when it’s personal like that.   The song means a lot to me because it’s so personal.”