a heart after God . That ' s a pretty big statement there , but David messed up a ton . We all know the story about Bathsheba . He didn ' t get canceled for it because cancel culture wasn ' t a thing back then . But we would all say , yeah , he lived a life of integrity , but he messed up in the middle of it . And I think it ' s finding that balance and letting his kindness lead us to repentance rather than letting his kindness sort of ensconce us in this place of arrogant sin even .
[ WM ] Absolutely . And Jonathan ?
[ Jonathan ] Yeah , absolutely . I believe in integrity on and off the stage , and one of the scariest things for me about the anointing , and when I say the anointing , it ' s the gift of God flowing through us empowering us to do what we couldn ' t do in our own strength . And I can look back at me and Melissa ' s journey and see these moments where it was the anointing that was flowing through us , the gift of God flowing through us that caused us to write songs , do things that we couldn ' t have done our own strength . I think one of the scariest things about the anointing is that it can still be operating in you and you ' re not living in purity .
Those people usually don ' t end well , but there can be a season and you see it with many biblical guys from David to Solomon and Samson , these moments . And I had this moment , one day I walked off the stage , it felt like just a failure of a worship set . It didn ' t go the way I expected . It was one of those worship sets that I just wanted to be amazing . I thought I ' d picked the perfect set list . There were important people in the room that were listening to me , and I just wanted it to be incredible .
I walked off the stage . Just one of those , “ I don ' t ever want to lead worship again ”, feelings in my heart . That was a disaster . And I remember though , I just leaned in towards the Lord , I was like , " Lord search me , know me , what ' s going on in here ?" And the Lord said , " Do you love the anointing more than you love the anointed one ? Do you love the anointing more than you love the anointed one ?" And you can see that with the Pharisees , they loved ministry more than they loved ministering to God .
They loved the role of their ministry more than they did ministering to God . And so , I think for me , that ' s a place and that ' s the seduction of success . You start writing songs or things start happening in ministry and all-of-a- sudden you love the anointing more than the anointed One .
[ WM ] That ' s good .
[ Jonathan ] Just to be honest , that ' s the journey I ' m on with the purity of my own heart . Lord , I want to step on the stage , and it be an overflow of hours and hours that I ' ve been ministering to you . So , what I ' m doing publicly is just an overflow of what ' s happening when no one ' s watching .