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About the Book
"Let Go Of Whatever Holds You Back" by John Mason is a motivational self-help book that encourages readers to identify and release the things in their lives that are holding them back from achieving their full potential. Through practical advice, inspiring anecdotes, and thought-provoking insights, the book empowers readers to let go of fear, negativity, and self-limiting beliefs in order to live a more fulfilling and successful life.
Rich Mullins
Born Richard Wayne Mullins on October 21, 1955, in Richmond, IN; died on September 19, 1997, in La Salle County, IL; son of John and Neva Mullins. Education: Attended Friends University, Wichita, KS, late 1980s.
The talents of Contemporary Christian singer/songwriter Rich Mullins and his work with the group Zion were first noticed by Christian music superstar Amy Grant. The inclusion of his song "Sing Your Praise to the Lord" on Grant's Age to Age album in 1982 soon lead to deals with Reunion Records and the start of a successful career as a songwriter and singer. With nearly ten albums and numerous Contemporary Christian hit songs to his credit, Mullins's career was cut short by an automobile accident that took his life on September 19, 1997, in Illinois.
Raised near Richmond, Indiana, Mullins began writing songs in his head as he drove a tractor over the fields of his family's farm. He taught himself to play the piano at age four and soon mastered a number of other instruments as well, including the guitar and hammered dulcimer. Long before his birth, however, factors over which he had no control were beginning to shape the world in which he would grow up. In Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven by James Bryan Smith, the singer tells of some family history and how it came to affect his life: "My dad grew up back and forth between Kentucky and Virginia because his father was a coal miner. And when my dad was 14 my grandpa came home and told my grandma to load up the truck 'cause they were gonna move.... And my grandpa said, 'Well, Rose, we're going to Detroit.' And she said, 'Why in the world are we going to Detroit?' And he said, 'Because I don't want my boys to grow up to be coal miners.' And so they got as far as Indiana and ran out of gas--and that's how I got here."
As a boy, Mullins was known as Wayne, his middle name. Although he went by Richard when he went off to college and shortened that to Rich when he launched his music career, he preferred to be known as Wayne by his family. Mullins was particularly close to his mother, Neva, who was raised a Quaker. He admits, however, to having been somewhat embarrassed by his father, who was raised in the heart of Appalachia, "which is a very polite way to say that he was a hillbilly," Mullins told Smith. Mullins said that it was not until he was nearing the end of high school that he began to understand the true meaning of the biblical injunction to "honor thy father and mother." In Smith's book Mullins is quoted: "[I]f you cannot honor your father and mother, then you can't honor anybody. Until you come to terms with your heritage, you'll never be at peace with yourself. That was a real breakthrough moment for me. So, what I needed to do was come to understand the Appalachian life, so that I could know more about my father, who had been a stranger to me all my life."
In 1974, after finishing high school, Mullins attended Cincinnati Bible College in Ohio, working as a youth minister in a local church. A couple of years into college, he formed a band of his own. The band only stayed together for about a year, and during that time it performed Christian music at schools and colleges throughout the Cincinnati area. In the late 1970s Mullins left college to work with Zion Ministries and perform with their band, aptly named Zion. In the summer of 1981 a copy of an album recorded by Zion--made up mostly of songs written by Mullins--found its way to Christian singer Amy Grant. The up-and-coming Grant and her managers were impressed by Mullins's "Sing Your Praise to the Lord" and decided to include it on Grant's next album, Age to Age, released in 1982. Mike Blanton, an adviser to Grant and founder of Reunion Records, signed Mullins to his first publishing deal as well as his first artist deal.
Mullins's first album for Reunion, self-titled, was released in 1986 and includes such songs as "Place to Stand," "Elijah," and "Few Good Men." He followed that in 1987 with Pictures in the Sky, which includes "When You Love," "Be with You," and "Verge of a Miracle." Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth, Mullins's third album for Reunion, was released in 1989 and features "Awesome God," "Other Side of the World," and "If I Stand." Also hitting music stores in 1989 was Never Picture Perfect, which includes the singles "I Will Sing," "While the Nations Rage," and "First Family."
In 1988 Mullins moved to Wichita, Kansas, to study music education at Friends University, a nondenominational Christian institution. While studying at Friends, he continued to record and perform whenever he could. In 1991 and 1992, he released two volumes of a compilation entitled World As Best As I Remember It. After completing his studies at Friends, Mullins joined a Compassion International mission to the vast Navajo Reservation in Arizona to teach music to the local children and spread the Christian gospel to whomever he could reach. As part of his work in the Navajo Nation, he formed a music club for some of the younger residents. In May of 1995, he moved to the Navajo Nation, settling into a trailer adjacent to the reservation. He lived there with fellow musician Mitch McVicker, and the two were involved in a project to collect musical instruments for the children of the reservation.
Throughout his career, Mullins has been nominated a total of 12 times for Dove Awards, presented each year to the best in Contemporary Christian music. He never received the award, but close friend Doris Howard told Release magazine that he probably didn't mind. "Nashville didn't own Rich, but then, he cared nothing for the things of this world."
On September 19, 1997, the Jeep in which Mullins and McVicker were traveling from Chicago to Wichita overturned on Interstate 39 in La Salle County, Illinois. Both men were thrown onto the road from their vehicle. A tractor trailer following close behind swerved to miss the Jeep but instead hit Rich, killing him instantly. McVicker, though injured critically, recovered.
Rich Mullins's Career
Joined Christian group Zion, late 1970s; released self-titled album for Reunion Records, 1986; recorded total of nine albums of Christian music for Reunion, 1986-96; wrote several Contemporary Christian hits, including "Awesome God" and "Sing Your Praise to the Lord"; studied music education, devoted time to relief efforts among Navajo Indians of the Southwest, mid-1990s.
Weighing the Beauty and Brevity of Life
It’s been ten years since my father died. A decade. Already? Nearly 20 percent of my lifetime has passed since I last saw him. Where did the time go? My oldest child recently turned 24. To me it seems that almost yesterday I was holding that precious newborn, singing softly to him while slowly pacing in the hospital room. But in reality, I’ve since lived 44 percent of my lifetime. Where did the time go? Thirty-six years ago, I began dating a beautiful 16-year-old girl whom I had the extraordinary privilege of marrying four years later. Scenes from that hot, sunny, summer day when it all began are still vivid to me, and have a hue of new  about them. Yet 65 percent of my life has managed to slip by since that monumental moment became a memory. Where did the time go? Where did the time go?  Why do we all ask some form of that question — and ask it over and over as the years pass? It’s not like we don’t know. Each of the approximately 3,700 days since my father died, the 8,800 days since my son was born, and the 13,200 days since my wife and I began dating passed just like the ones before it. The days accumulated over time. It’s simple math. But of course, it’s not the math that bewilders us. We’re bewildered by something far more profound — that this life we’ve been given, this significant existence with all its sweet and bitter dimensions, passes so quickly and then is gone. We Are Marvels We all intuitively discern that our lives have profound significance. Even when we’re told they don’t, we don’t really believe it — or if we really do, we no longer want to live. We also intuitively discern that there is profound significance to the great human story-arc, with all of its collective triumphs and tragedies. This isn’t mere human hubris, because most of us, including the greatest among us, have always been cognizant of our smallness in the cosmos. Truly did David pray, When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,      the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him,      and the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3–4) “We are marvels of creation, who long for eternity, yet whose lifespans here are like a mist.” But even in view of our smallness, it’s undeniable that there is something awesome about humanity. Just a brief glance around us shouts this. From where I’m writing (on a laptop computer wirelessly connected to the world!), I see automobiles driving by, a commercial jet flying overhead, an educational institution devoted to helping underprivileged children succeed in school, and a talented gardener carefully cultivating her organic artwork. These phenomena are just part of “normal” daily life for me, yet each represents staggering layers of human ingenuity. And to top it off, my (also wirelessly world-connected) mobile phone has just informed me that NASA has successfully launched its latest rover mission to the planet Mars. Without denying our great and grievous capacities for evil, every single one of us is simply a marvel in our various ranges of intellect, capacities for language and communication, aptitudes for innovation, abilities to impose order upon chaos, and contributions to collective human achievements. Truly did David pray, You have made [man] a little lower than the heavenly beings      and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;      you have put all things under his feet. (Psalm 8:5–6) God has endowed human beings with the glory and honor of being made in his image (Genesis 1:26–27). This is the profound significance we all intuit, even those who deny it. Our lives are imbued with tremendous meaning. We Are Mists Yet each of our profoundly significant earthly lives, no matter how short or long it lasts, is so brief. We look up to find 10, 24, 36 years have suddenly passed. Repeatedly we’re hit with the realization that our lives “are soon gone, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10). Truly did David pray, Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,      and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! (Psalm 39:5) And truly did James say, “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). It’s this existential experience of being marvels and mists that we find bewildering. We find it a strange phenomenon to watch our lives move relentlessly along a continuum, leaving experiences that are massively important to us in an increasingly distant past, while our earthly end — the end of the only reality we’ve ever known — approaches with unnerving speed. It recurrently catches us by surprise. With Eternity in Our Hearts But why  do we find this experience strange and surprising? Many experts from various branches of the cognitive and biological sciences venture answers. But just as recounting the math of passing days doesn’t address the strangeness and surprise we feel when we ask, “Where did the time go?” neither do the chemical mechanics of consciousness. And there’s more to the deep longings this whole experience awakens than just the awareness and anticipation of our mortality. Truly did the writer of Ecclesiastes say, [God] has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11) God has given us the ability to conceive of eternity, yet in spite of conferring upon us many marvelous capacities, he has not granted us to peer into eternity past or eternity future, no matter how hard we try. And due to our efforts to seize forbidden knowledge, God has withdrawn our once-free access to simply eat of the tree of life and live forever (Genesis 3:22–24). We are marvels of creation, whose lives are imbued with great meaning, who long for eternity, yet whose lifespans here are like a mist. No wonder we find time mystifying. Teach Us to Number Our Days Our strange experience of the passing of time is more than a by-product of consciousness, more than mere existential angst over mortality. It is a reminder and a pointer. “God has reopened for us the way to the tree of life, to eternal life, and that way is through his Son, Jesus.” It is a reminder  that we are contingent creatures and that the profound significance we intuitively know our lives possess is derived  significance, not self-conferred  significance. Though created in the likeness of God and given marvelous capacities, we are not self-existent or self-determining like God. Rather, “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), receiving from him our “allotted periods” of life and “the boundaries of [our] dwelling place” (Acts 17:26). And the brevity of those allotted periods of life are meant to make us cry out, “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!” (Psalm 39:4). And our experience of deep heart longing for eternity in the face of such brevity is a pointer  that we are actually designed for such a thing as eternal life. For those who have eyes to see, this is a gospel pointer. For God has reopened for us the way to the tree of life, to eternal life, and that way is through his Son, Jesus (John 3:16; 14:6; Romans 6:23; Revelation 2:7). Those moments when we ask, “Where did the time go?” are reminders that “all flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it” (Isaiah 40:6–7). And they are pointers to the reality that though our “days are like grass,” yet “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him” (Psalm 103:15–17). Those moments come to us in order to “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).
