When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. But when life hands you hurricanes, you go surfing.

As far as when I'm writing a song, I think I'm writing first and foremost for myself.

I think sometimes we can use spirituality as a vehicle to go closer to the things that frighten us and sometimes we can use it as a shield. I'm guilty of it too. I think spiritual words can do one or the other. Because when I hear people say, in a religion setting, 'Glory,' 'Praise the Lord,' 'Hallelujah,' but it doesn't mean anything, those are actually words that distance us from God, ironically enough.

Eventually everything fails me, but when I look at the sunset or the sky, I'm reminded what it's like to be alive.

Music is mere tuning a song with words; to some degree you have a beautiful endeavor of cosigning God's blank checks and you're actually co-creating. You're certainly not the creator with the capital C, but you're embarking on an endeavor, you're using the building blocks that have been given to you by the author of time and space.

Please be slow to judge ‘brothers’ who have a different calling.

Sometimes, the best songs are the ones you write without any pen and paper or audio recording device or guitar in your hands. Because there's nothing between you and the melody; it's just a great lyric.