How to Find Hope
When You’ve Done Everything Right and Still Feel Lost
What do you do when you’ve said yes to every door God opened for you, and still end up completely lost?
Singer, songwriter, Bodie shared with us how he’d been there.
“My parents were actors in Hollywood, you know, waiting tables to put food on the table and doing the whole starving artist thing. Stage and performance and all of that was a large part of my upbringing, and it inevitably became something that I was passionate about at a young age.”
When his parents moved into ministry, leading worship came naturally for Bodie. He never questioned it.
“I just kept leading worship through high school. And there was lots of ups and downs, and I definitely spent a lot of years living two lives—and that’s a whole other part of my testimony. But when I really fell in love fully with Jesus and dedicated my full heart and my full vision and my full intention to just fulfilling whatever he called me to do—that was probably towards the beginning of my college experience.”
He kept pursuing it. Met his wife in college, married her, landed his first church job. But four years in, something quietly shifted, the way some seasons end.
“I kind of felt as if the covering was lifted. And it was kind of time for me to move on.”
Every Open Door
So he did. He and his wife moved back to California. He started a photo and video business. He kept serving his church as a volunteer, kept making music, and started teaching at a university. Every door that opened, he walked through.
“Now the business is going really well, and I find myself breaking down on my face in my studio saying, ‘God, I don’t know who I am anymore. I’ve walked through these doors, I’ve built this video business. I serve at my church. I’m still trying to make music, but it kind of feels like I’m just drying out.’”
“I was doing so many different things, and I was just like, ‘God, I’ve walked through all these doors and I’ve kind of lost sight of who I am outside of a child of God, outside of a husband and a father. I don’t know who the heck I am anymore.’”
On the Floor
That’s where the surrender happened, an exhausted, honest reckoning.
Bodie continued his prayer. “Lord, I will do whatever you want me to do. I will close every business I started. I will wait tables; I will be a janitor. I’ll do whatever, God! I submit myself to your call. But God, why the heck am I doing all these things? Why am I making videos for lawyers when my heart is to be a musician, an artist?”
Not long after that moment, Bodie was invited to compete on The Voice and performed in the finale. His music shifted toward Christ-centered lyrics. And the season that had felt like a wrong turn began to look, from the other side, like preparation.
He Was Building Something.
“If I wouldn’t have gone through the training of learning how to build a business—if I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn how to hone my craft in content creation and media—if I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn how to navigate production and all these things, I wouldn’t be ready for what God’s calling me towards now.”
That realization landed about a year ago.
“Bodie continued, “Everything that I battled through, those crying moments with my wife, saying, ‘I don’t know who I am anymore.’ God knew all along, exactly what he had for me, but it was those moments where you just have to continue to push through and trust that God’s plan is so much better than what you were hoping for.”
That’s the promise of Jeremiah 29:11. “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (NIV). Bodie lived his way into understanding.
Ask for Wisdom; Walk in Peace.
Even now, questions still come. Bodie teaches at a university, leads, makes music, and imposter syndrome still shows up uninvited.
He says he still asks, “Am I good enough in other areas of my life? I’m a teacher at a university, and oftentimes I question, ‘Am I the right person for this job’ and ‘Am I the right leader for this ministry?’ And ‘Am I smart enough and articulate enough? Am I really being used the way God wants to use me?’”
What he reaches for in those moments is a promise he’s carried for years.
“Something that I cling to tightly, about the Lord. And something that brings me a lot of peace. When I walk through tons of different scenarios and situations is, that God will always give you wisdom when you ask for it. And it says in James 1:5 that anyone that is lacking wisdom can ask for it and it will be given to you. It’s a promise.” (paraphrased.)
It’s the same thing he tells the young leaders he works with—including someone he talked to recently who’d received a big church job offer and didn’t know what to do.
“My encouragement is always men—continue walking through doors until either the door gets closed or you don’t feel peace anymore. And the only way to really be confident that that peace is coming from the Lord is if you’re spending time with him daily and again asking for wisdom.”
Still in It
Bodie is clear that he hasn’t arrived. “I’m still navigating that in my own life. God, where do you actually want me to go in the long run?”
But to anyone sitting in a season that makes no sense—he speaks from experience:
“If you’re in a season where you’re like, ‘man, I don’t like where I’m at, but I don’t feel the release. I feel like I’m supposed to be here still. God has me here. But God, what am I doing here?’ I promise you, the other side of this is going to be the sweetest moment ever.”
Bodie continues, “Clinging to the promises that you know he has a plan for you. He has a purpose for you. And even in the valleys, He is with you, and he loves you. And so just to cling to that promise, those promises, and to continue being as excellent as you can into the Lord, you’re going to experience so much breakthrough.”
If you’ve lost sight of who you are outside of what you do—if you’re drying out, walking through doors, and wondering if any of it means anything—you are not off course. You are in training. God hasn’t lost the thread of your story. He’s been weaving it the whole time, and what He’s making is so much better than what you were hoping for.
Want go go deeper?
God is still writing your story. There Must Be More: Discovering the Purpose God Planted in You is your next step. This 5-day YouVersion plan will help you discover the purpose God settled before you were born and the calling that’s already unfolding in your life right now.