This one hit me in the chest. Hillsong United frontman Joel Houston sat down with Pastor Rich Wilkerson Jr. on the “Mature Me” podcast and got real about a few hard years, Christian Today reported. I want to say this up front: I’m not here to pile on anybody. I’m here because a man was honest, and honesty is where the Holy Spirit loves to move.
What he shared
- He spent two to three years “not really going to church” as he worked through the loss of the community he’d known since childhood. He says that didn’t mean he left his faith or stopped loving the church.
- Even in his most successful ministry years he was privately battling emptiness, exhaustion and anxiety: “Everything on the outside looked incredible, but inside … I was dying and I couldn’t explain why.”
- He talked about unhealthy coping habits, including alcohol and cigarettes, and about asking himself whether he was a fake. His answer: deep down he wanted everything to be “the real thing.”
- He compared losing his church home to going through a divorce.
- Stepping out of the spotlight gave him room for what he calls a season of soul-searching, and he rediscovered worship in private: “I felt closer to God … just sitting by my piano or my computer late at night with no one around … than some of the most intimate amazing moments that I’ve had on stage.”
My take
That last line is the whole thing. The anointing was never the lights and the stage. It’s the Presence, and the Presence will meet you at a piano at midnight with nobody watching. When the platform, the applause and the schedule fall away, He is still right there.
I also love that he refused to just keep doing what was easy. He said it felt insincere to carry on with the thing he’d always done. Sometimes the Spirit calls us to step back, get still and let Him rebuild the foundation. “Be still, and know that I am God” isn’t a nice poster verse, it’s an invitation, and it can last a season.
If you’re in a quiet or painful season with the church right now, you’re not disqualified. “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.” Keep your heart open, keep talking to Him, and pray for the Houston family and everyone who’s been hurt in church life. He restores.
Have a blessed day! And Happy Hacking!
