God is faithful to those who are faithful to Him. Don¯t believe me? Try it for yourself. We are out on tour right now and have been experiencing a great deal of financial strain. I think that a lot of people have a major misconception about rock stars and the rock star lifestyle? The truth of the matter is that the rock & roll lifestyle is filled with more tuna sandwiches, sleeping on floors, all night drives in a van, loading gear in and out of trailers, wearing dirty clothes, missing our wives, and watching VHS on a 2 inch TV screen, than it is filled with limos, roadies, massages, huge honorariums, steak, luxury tour buses and satellite TV. This tour has not exactly been Financially beneficial for us and so we were going to have to bow out of the West coast run in order to not lose more money. We were really torn about it because we were heading back to our home state, but the loss of money was undeniable. But the more we prayed about it, the more we felt like God wanted us to remain on the tour although He never gave us a reason why.

Although it made no financial sense, we all decided that we would rather be obedient than be the master of our own fate. So, we packed up the van and set out to head to the west coast. When we arrived at our show in Kenosha, Wisconsin (the show right before we headed out west), we were told that one of the tour trucks had broken down. This truck had been towing the Extreme rock wall, and now there was no one to tow the rock wall and no way for them to secure another truck until we got to Tucson, Arizona. When we had started the tour, we had volunteered to tow the rock wall for a nominal fee, but we ended up having to stop for gas every 2 hours because we were getting 7 miles to the gallon (we usually get close to 25 miles per gallon), so we ended up not doing it. But, because of this, we had the proper hitch on our van, so the tour manager asked if we would be able to tow the rock wall to Tucson for them. I sort of hesitated, because it would add about four or five hours a day to our already horrendous drive. Reading my hesitation, the tour manager offered to not only pay for all of our gas, but also give us a little something extra for wear and tear on the van. This was not exactly the greatest offer that we had ever gotten, but the bottom line was, our gas would be covered and it would certainly help us keep from going in the red on the west coast run.

So, when you hear that blessings come in all shapes and sizes, think of the dino-sized-petrified-terd-on-wheels (also known as the rock wall) that we are towing across the country and remember that God is faithful to those who are faithful to Him.

By Jesse Butterworth