The only 5 things you need... and other platitudes that don’t really work

Coach Craig Knapp is one of our tech coaches in Colorado who joined the Ad Lib Music team at the beginning of 2024. If you’re near Denver, join the monthly worship and tech leaders lunch he and Coach Kevin lead! He brings you this week’s Fertilizer.

Whenever I browse social media, I consistently see posts about “the only 5 magical things that can do everything better…” 

The only 5 tweaks you need!

The only 5 exercises you need!

The only 5 frequencies you need!

The only 5 plug-ins you need!

Frequently, I fall victim to clickbait, looking to see what this person has to say about the problem and what they found to be a solution. The majority have a good point or two that can help. The complexity is that every problem you encounter poses different obstacles, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. 

Have you ever found this? You find a tutorial or an online class about something you want to learn; you download the included files for the class to get things all set up. You are doing everything the instructor tells you to do, and suddenly, it is nothing like the example in the videos. Before you can continue, you have to stop and figure out what you did wrong or what settings differ from the instructor.

Every life lesson is unique and requires us to grow in our knowledge to “fix” the problem.

The good bad news is that these “problems” cause us to grow. Yes, sometimes we need to learn the hard way by going through difficult situations. But that is how we grow, not just in knowledge but also in maturity. 

My friend Bob is one of those people in life who speaks truth to me. There are times when he sees things in my life that I am clueless about but that I need to work on, and he will point them out to me. There have been many times when he has told me things that I didn’t want to hear. The even cooler part about my friendship with Bob is that he cares enough to share those things with me, even if I get upset about it.

Bob once posed the question to me. “If you could go back and change anything in your life what would that be?” 

All of these years later in life, I don’t remember my answer to his question. What I do remember is his answer. 

Bob said, “I wouldn’t change anything.” 

“What?!”

Bob was teaching me a valuable life lesson. He explained to me the following truth. The things in life that you have experienced are the very foundation of who you are now. The good things, the things that are horrible that you have gone through. Without those things, you would not be who you are today. You have compassion for this person because you went through this bad thing. You experience joy in this situation because you experienced loss at that time. We are constantly growing and morphing into who God is calling us to be.

The good and bad experiences that I have had in many years of church ministry have taught me compassion. Some have taught me how to not do things, but all have brought me closer to God. When we take our focus off of the problem and focus on God and His plan for our lives, we realize that all these things happen to bring us closer to God.

-Craig Knapp
(purchase our book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)

The only 5 things you need... and other platitudes that don’t really work (Nº 409)