Interview with Clint Brown
by Alicia Carson
The night before my interview with this week’s featured artist, I stayed awake much later than usual bombarding God with questions: Where were you? Why did you allow this to happen to me? I love you. I’m a good person. Why didn’t my situation work out differently? My faith had been shattered months earlier by a succession of devastating losses, and I hadn’t quite recovered from the disillusionment of it all. I concluded that God let me down and I found myself reacting to Him in anger.
Amazingly enough, the interview you are about to read took place the morning after my temper tantrum. I appreciate God for His patience and for acknowledging my hysterical cry for help. If you have ever felt the way I did that night, or if you currently face challenges which seem to threaten your faith, then this interview is especially for you.
In this week’s High Notes, Gospel artist and full-time pastor Clint Brown discusses what he’s learned about faith in spite of setbacks. He also reveals the story behind a song from his Fall Like Rain CD and talks about the classic Andraé Crouch anthem that has become his personal testimony.
“The Bible says that the steps of a righteous man are ordered by God,” says Brown. It's a lesson he learned first-hand almost ten years ago.
In October 1999, Brown and other colleagues were scheduled to fly on a private Learjet to Dallas, Texas to meet with Pastor Benny Hinn. They were meeting to finalize the merger of their two Orlando-based churches, Hinn’s World Outreach Center and Brown’s Faith World Center.
But when Clint Brown and his group arrived at the airport, they were told their reserved aircraft wasn’t ready; they would have to take another flight instead. Brown, his father, two attorneys, and his accountant traveled on their newly-assigned plane without incident and arrived safely in Dallas for their meeting.
“We flew back to Orlando that same night,” says Brown, “and when we got home and turned on the television, the news reported that a gentleman who lives two doors down from me had been killed in a plane crash. It was professional golf champion, Payne Stewart. Payne and several of his friends died in the Dakotas because of an oxygen problem on the aircraft.”
Soon after reports were released, Brown learned that the plane he originally chartered was the same aircraft that crashed with Payne Stewart and his friends onboard. That jarring discovery became the inspiration for one of the songs on Clint’s latest CD.
Clint Brown: Out of that experience, I wrote a song called It Was You and I sing it just about every day of my life because it reminds me that if it wasn’t for the Lord holding me, protecting me and guiding me, I don’t even know where I would be. Sometimes you don’t know what God is doing, but God has a will and a plan for your life every day.
A. Carson: What part of that song especially stands out for you?
Clint Brown: Well, the song says, It was you holding me when my world started turning, and I couldn’t see through the storm and the rain, through the hurt that I felt, through the tears and the pain. To me, it reflects those moments when you are in the midst of difficult situations and you can’t see, and you can’t navigate your way through things. Like when I was on that plane, I didn’t know what was going on at that time across the world, but it affected my life, and it was connected to my life. It’s just powerful to know that God does unknown things in our lives all of the time.
It's just like when the disciples were on the boat in the middle of a sea storm. In the midst of that, Jesus came walking on the water, but they didn’t know who He was; they thought He was a ghost. The song It Was You expresses the fact that God can step into the midst of any storms and say “Peace! Be still.” The end of the chorus says, Two hands led me through, and when I opened my eyes, I realized it was you. It’s a reminder that God is guiding us even when we don’t know it and can’t see our own way.
A. Carson: Why doesn’t God just say, “Hey, it’s me” or “Don’t get mad about your delayed flight. This is why I’m going to allow it to happen”? Why doesn’t he just tell us what’s going on to help us avoid the frustration that can come from not seeing the bigger picture?
Clint Brown: I don’t think God is gonna let us be exempt from the disappointments of life. There are things in life we are just gonna have to go through, and there are things we just won’t understand. For example, my 5 year old nephew died of Tay-Sachs Disease. My mother died at age 56 from a massive heart attack; and my father died at 67 of cancer. Yet I hear that some people’s children live well, go to college and become doctors; some mothers and fathers live 'til they’re in their 80s and 90s, but none of that happened for me. But I think those experiences made me stronger; they made me able to minister to other people going through tragedies. But if I understood everything -- if I never walked through a day of not understanding -- then where would my level of faith be? And where would my trust be?
We have to go through some difficult things. It sharpens and strengthens us. It makes us wiser. We become better people whenever we get through challenges without knowing the why or where or what or how come.
I don’t know if you know this, Alicia, but Andraé Crouch wrote a song years ago that says, Through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus, I’ve learned to trust in God. Through it all, I’ve learned to depend up on his word. And if you’ll look at all the verses, Andraé goes on to say things like, I thank God for the mountains. I thank God for the valleys. I thank Him for the storms He’s brought me through. For if I never had a problem, I wouldn’t know that God could solve them. I wouldn’t know what faith in God can do. I don’t know whether you’re too young to remember that song, Alicia…
A. Carson: Oh no. Not at all (laugh).
Clint Brown: That’s a powerful song, and it’s the truth. Mountains, valleys and storms develop who we are and give us the ability to know that hey -- even though we’re going to walk thru them, even though we are going to face difficult times, God is faithful.
Clint Brown is the Senior Pastor of FaithWorld Center in Orlando, Florida. His latest CD is Fall Like Rain. For more information about Clint Brown, visit www.clintbrown.org or www.myspace.com/clintbrownmusic.
