Rich Mullins: I'm living on a Navajo Reservation.

RM: Well, it's about the size of West Virginia, yeah. New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. I live up in the Four Corners area.

RM: No. Wouldn't that make a great story, though, for evangelicals and charismatics. They'd love it! The truth is, I just, um, I think I just kinda wanted to... I just kinda got tired of the white, evangelical, middle class, sorta perspective on God. And I thought maybe I would have more luck finding Christ among the pagan Navajos.

RM: Well, probably no more than evangelical, Christian, white folks.

RM: I'm teaching music.

RM: Well, you know, this whole ministry mumbo jumbo stuff, I don't buy that. I think you are who you are, and you just live your life. And eventually we'll all be dead, and it will probably matter very little that any of us actually lived. Except to God who made us. And the only way we can possibly do anything meaningful to God is to be who He made us to be. And the rest of this stuff about doing stuff for God and this and that I think is a bunch of hype.

If I were going to be a good car... if Mr. Ford had invented me, and I wanted to bring Mr. Ford glory, what would I do? I wouldn't go conquer countries. I wouldn't plow fields. I would simply be a car. So I think in that God created me, I need simply to be a person. And I think that God looks down and gets a big kick out of people. But what He finds is a bunch of heroes, and I think He's bored with heroism, and I think it's just a matter of just being who you are.

RM: Well, this is the trick of the trade is letting go of your own ideas of yourself and allowing God to define you as you go along. Which is very hard to do, because we like to think way more highly of ourselves than we ought. And at the same time, we think far more angrily towards ourselves than we should. I think that God likes us awfully much more than we imagine that He does. But I don't think He likes us because we're so very cool or we're so very useful or so very valuable. I think God just is love, so He can't help but like us. One of the struggles in my life has been, you know, I grew up in this good, solid, Christian family. And I always assumed that a good, solid, Christian man would some day marry, have fifteen kids, and raise them all in the church, and do the whole bit. So for a long time, I've kind of gone, man, God, what went wrong? Where did you blow it with me? 'Cause you know, all my brothers and sisters, they all have families and stuff. And I'm going, man, you're really screwing up here!

And what I've realized is that at some point I had to be willing to say, you know what, God's picture of my life doesn't look like my picture of it. God's picture of good mental, emotional, physical, health doesn't always look like my picture of good mental, physical, emotional health. And so as a Christian, if I believe that God is good - which I think as a Christian, we must - then I have to believe that my life is good. Whether or not I like it. Whether or not I find it particularly pleasant or easy or exciting or what. If God is good, and if life is a gift that we are given from God, then I must learn to accept my life and my quirks.

Which isn't to say that you lay down in your sins or in your weaknesses and wallow in those things, but you begin to recognize that perhaps we've been given a particular set of weaknesses, because God in some way will find more glory in our overcoming that than he would if we hadn't had those weaknesses.

So, Paul said to thank the Lord in all things. And Paul, as a matter of fact, it's so interesting to read Paul after you talk to people who believe in him, because you find out he was far less religious than those people that quote him all the time. He was a lot more down to earth, and he was more like a regular guy. So, that's kinda that. [Laughter] How about that?! Any other questions you'd like to ask?

RM: Go ahead, I've got all the time in the evening

RM: I believe that our call in life comes from... can come from different sources. One, first of all, I'll tell you what I really think God's will for me is. And I can tell you what God's will is for every person standing here. And it ain't because I'm some big prophet. It's because I have half a brain. God's will for me and for him and for her is that we should be holy.

I think that apart from our becoming holy, God really doesn't give a bang in a bag about a whole lot of stuff that we worry about. So people will say, 'Well, where does God want me to go to college?' And I kinda go, 'You know what, I've been to college a lot, I don't know that God wants you to go.' But, maybe you want to go, so why don't you do what you want to do. And if God don't like it, He'll stop you. Does that make sense?

RM: Well, not always necessarily, but see, I'm just not as convinced as the Calvinists are that God has a specific...

[Rich looks over his left shoulder at another speaker at a nearby stage who is becoming quite animated.]

Must be a Baptist over there!

I'm just not as convinced as everybody else seems to be that God has a specific will for each of us and that our job in life is to figure out what is right for us to do. I kinda tend to think that we should be where we are, be God's person in the place where we are. And if God wants you to go to Egypt, He will provide eleven jealous brothers, and they will sell you into slavery. That He will take care of His will, we don't have to worry about God's will. Not in that way.

What is a big worry to me is how do I live out holiness? How do I live out that identity that God has created in me? And imputed into me through His Son Jesus. What is that about? That's what worries me.

RM: [In a Southern revival preacher impersonation] Do you read the Bible every day?!

RM: Well, for me, I think to be truly holy means to be really free. I very seldom think teetotalers are holy people, because I think they're just hung-up people. I tend to think that people who are free to take a drink or free to not take a drink are living far more out of holiness than people who are very restrictive about things. Does that make sense?

RM: That when I am free, when I can walk toward or walk away from anything in the world, I'm really free. It's no sweat off my brow. But people who are real rigid and that sort of thing... Now, I think, one thing I've learned. There are certain billboards that I need not stare at when I drive down the highway. And part of that is because I'm not free. I'm not complete. God's not done with me yet. And so, there are certain things that I've recognized, man, I need to avoid this situation or that situation. Not because I'm holy. Not because I'm too cool for school, but because I'm too weak to sneak a peek, here. If you know what I mean is.

RM: So I kinda go, the rigidity, the hyper-righteousness that we frequently encounter among these kinds of people that we have around us and that we are included among, our rigidness is no reflection of holiness, whatsoever. Our rigidness is a reflection of the fact that we are not yet so in love with God that it would be impossible to fall away from him.

RM: Well, you know, it's really been so amazing to me to be involved in the music industry, because I go, man, I hear the same music as everyone else hears and I know the people who are writing it, including myself, and I go, man, what people don't understand is that there is a difference between what we want to be like and what we are like. I would like to be just like that guy that I hear singing them songs. I go, man, he's such a cool guy.

And then I go, but the minute he leaves there, you go to the hotel room and your shirt stinks like you can't believe. You take your shoes off. You hang your socks out the window. And you immediately go, man, why am I so hung up? Why am I so insecure? Why am I so angry? Why am I so... Why can't I be like I am on stage? And I kinda go, because what people hear of my life over the course of a year is maybe 45 minutes of the best moments of an entire, 365-day year. I go, man, that really represents this much of me. And I'm really more than I'm cracked up to be.

RM: Yeah, and it's a funny thing, 'cause I kinda go, boy, probably your average Joe probably has maybe two and a half hours of these kinds of good things. If I had two and a half hours of that, I would make much longer albums. [Laughter]

RM: It ain't worth looking at!

Copyright by Ichtus '96, 1996