There's a story making its way around the Christian music world right now, and it's worth pausing on — not because of who's involved, but because of what it points to.
Cory Asbury, the worship artist behind "Reckless Love," recently shared that he spent five years deliberately walking away from his faith and his ministry. Five years. And what eventually broke through wasn't a program or a platform or a perfectly timed sermon. It was a friend — fellow musician Forrest Frank — who loved him enough to say the hard thing directly to his face.
Cory called it a rebuke. And he said it changed everything.
That's worth sitting with for a moment.
The Grace Hidden Inside a Hard Word
We live in a time when everyone is careful about what they say to each other. We don't want to offend. We don't want to overstep. And honestly, some of that carefulness is wisdom — there's a right way and a wrong way to speak truth to someone you love.
But Scripture doesn't let us off the hook entirely. Proverbs 27:6 says, "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses." That's a sobering little verse. It's saying something we instinctively know but often resist: sometimes the most loving thing a person can do is tell you what you don't want to hear.
This isn't about being blunt for its own sake. It's about being faithful enough to someone that you won't just watch them drift.
Faithfulness Has a Long Memory
Those of us who have walked with God for decades know something that younger believers are still learning. You don't always see the fruit of your faithfulness right away.
Maybe you prayed for someone for years before anything seemed to change. Maybe you kept showing up, kept speaking truth gently, kept leaving the door open — and nothing happened for a long, long time. That kind of faithfulness is quiet work. It doesn't make headlines. But it matters enormously.
Think about the people in your own life who played that role for you. A parent who never gave up. A Sunday school teacher whose name you still remember. A friend who told you the truth when no one else would. Someone who saw you wandering and kept the light on.
That's the body of Christ doing what it was made to do.
What Five Years Away Costs — and What Grace Restores
We don't know the full details of what Cory Asbury walked through during those five years, and that's not really ours to know. What we do know is that he came back. And that Easter-season truth — that what was lost can be found, that what was dead can live again — is not just a theme for one Sunday in spring. It's the heartbeat of the gospel every day of the year.
The prodigal son didn't come home because everything worked out fine. He came home because he finally came to himself — and because there was a father already watching the road, ready to run.
That father didn't wait to see if the son had cleaned himself up. He ran.
That's who God is.
What This Means for How We Love Each Other
If you've been around this church for many years, you have something that newer believers and younger generations genuinely need. You have a long view. You've seen people walk away and come back. You've seen God move in ways that didn't fit anyone's timetable. You've prayed prayers whose answers took decades to arrive.
That wisdom and that perseverance — that willingness to stay in relationship with someone even when they're hard to reach — is a ministry. It may be the most important ministry you have.
Don't underestimate what it means to be someone who refuses to give up on a person.
And if you're the one who has wandered — if somewhere along the way the fire went cold and you've been going through the motions, or maybe not even that — know this: the door is not closed. The road home is shorter than it feels. And there are people here who will be genuinely glad to see you walking back down it.
A Word of Invitation
At Outpouring Worship Center, we're a community built on more than fifty years of God's faithfulness to this little corner of Michigan. We've seen people come home. We've seen prodigals return. We've seen hardened hearts soften and cold embers catch fire again.
We believe the Spirit is still moving — fresh in every generation, faithful across every decade.
If you want to talk, pray, or simply find a place where you're known and loved, we'd be honored to be that for you. You don't have to have it all together to walk through the door.
Fresh Outpouring. Every Generation.