We were given the Scriptures to humble us into realizing that God is right, and the rest of us are just guessing.”
-Rich Mullins
You know Rich Mullins as the writer/performer of Christian songs like “Our God Is An Awesome God,” Step By Step,” “Winds Of Heaven,” and so many more. He was born in 1955 in a small town in eastern Indiana. He acquired a gift of music and love for God at a young age attending a Quaker church and graduated from Cincinnati Bible College.
In the early ‘70s he got involved in the Jesus movement, though his thinking never quite fit well in that world. He was uncomfortable in “a faith that told you what you had to believe or reduced God to a set of rules.” Faith, for him, was much more than that. He said “Christianity is not about building a secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. It is about learning to love like Jesus loved.”
At the peak of his career and popularity he left the music world to serve ignominiously on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, teaching music. When asked why he would leave his successful and lucrative recording career, he would say he felt he would “have more luck finding Christ there.“
He wasn’t perfect. He struggled with self-esteem and alcohol but said he would rather depend upon the “all-sufficiency of the grace of God than to live in some illusion of moral excellence.” When he was just 41 he was driving to a concert in Wichita, KS and was killed in a car accident.
Throughout his career, the profits from his tours and the sale of every album were entrusted to his church which paid Mullins the average salary for a laborer in the U.S. for that year, giving the rest to charity. Rich Mullins—although not perfect—truly lived a life in imitation of Jesus. He exhibited agape love: No strings or judgement attached.
If every Christian did that, think how it would change our world. How denominations would stop judging each other, and how attractive following Jesus would be for those who do not know Him. Mullins said simply: “Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved.” During these difficult times, we all could lean into that effort a little more.
Blessings
Jim
Published by