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We caught up with JJ WEEKS to talk about his journey into music, the stories behind some of his songs and a difficult year he had that almost ended his music career!
How did things change when your song “Let them see you” took off?
That song hit and literally we started getting calls from everywhere. We had gotten used to the tour pattern that we had ran independently, we knew how to do that well. So we live in Georgia, it’s on the opposite side of the country, California, Colorado. We started getting calls from those areas, it felt like we had to re-learn how to travel and how to do ministry. We would be in North Carolina one weekend and then the next weekend in Colorado which is thousands of miles apart.
It really changed us and changed our outlook and obviously the amount people at our show changed. But it didn’t change the purpose of why we were doing it. We’ve also stayed with purpose of “IS this what God has called us to do?” And we want people to see something so much bigger than us that shows.
Can you touch on the heart of “Let them see you”?
My mum grew up with great parents who loved the Lord and took us to Church every Sunday. And tried to raise as right as they knew how to. Every morning my mum would wake me up for school because she knew that I didn’t work well with alarm clocks.
I remember her coming in morning after morning and saying “get up”. There was this one morning that was different. She walked in and she said “Son, here’s what I want you to do. Before you step foot out of bed. Before you take one step into the day. I want you to give God your day. Give Him everything. Give him the good, the bad”.
So from that day forward, I prayed a simple prayer “God whatever I face today, whether it’s a mountain top experience or a valley experience, people see You in me”. One morning I woke up and I heard that simple chorus in my mind and I stared singing it from that day forward.
That became my prayer every morning. Just that simple chorus “let them see you in me”. Then one day, we were writing and planning the record. And the producer said “Is this all the songs you have?”. And I said I got this little prayer that I pray every single morning. It’s just a simple thing and singing it to him and we just felt something in that moment and knew that God had a plan.
How did you push through those hard season?
Life throws you ups and downs. I’ve had great moments and I’ve had moments and I had those throughout the 19 years. A lot of those down moments for me, were times where I needed to reflect and get back to the root. It was always fairly easy to get through.
But Last year was something different. I was like everything that could go wrong, was going wrong.
Finances; I felt like I could never pay every ones pay cheques without having to borrow some money from somebody. And then we had bus trouble with the bus we owned. We had family trouble with cancer that lead to death. And then the unexpected death of my father in law.
I got to a place where being on the road was just not what I wanted to do. The last place I wanted to be was standing on stage, singing about how great a God is that seemed like He might have forgotten about the guy standing on stage. I got to a place where I almost felt like a hypocrite singing on stage. I got real lonely and it was the last place I wanted to be. I feel what God had to do with me last year and I feel like He has to do this to all of us, at times. He has to break us completely out of our wheel. Like completely out of what we want in our life.
And get us so broken and so down to where we say “You know what God at this point I just want what You want”. In that way, it drains us of all our wants and our thoughts and brings us back to ground zero, saying “God the reason I started doing this, the reason I’m walking in this life is because of You anyway, so show me how to that”. I think for me, how I got through last year was just getting back to saying “God this is all about You, it’s not about a radio single, it’s not about the label being impressed, it’s not about management.
At the end of the day, we just want to be what you want us to be. That’s how I got through last year, getting back to saying “God I am completely solely dependent on You.
So it takes the pressure off us as Christians. And we say “You know what God, this is all your thing and I’m just here trying to walk it out and with that comes true freedom. I’m free from the worry of ‘Is this going to be another number one single?’ or I’m free to do what Gods calling me to do because I’m not locked in on making it exactly what we think it should be, its solely what He wants. Absolutely, that’s where this song was birthed. It’s finding that true freedom in true surrender.
Thank you JJ Weeks for taking the time to talk to us. We pray that you continue to trust in God and He would bless you in your music ministry all you do!