By Gavin Boyle
Though Josiah Queen has experienced amazing success over the past year, he still works to write songs that please to the Lord, rather than further his career.
“You get a hit, so you get ‘Demons’ or you get ‘Dusty Bibles’ or you get songs that just go, like, out, and you could be very tempted to be like, ‘Man, I need to go and write another “Dusty Bibles,”’” Queen told podcaster George Janko. “And you just sit down and the worst mindset to have when writing music is to sit there and be like, ‘I’m gonna write another this.’ It just doesn’t work. And so, that’s the mindset that leads you down this rabbit hole of, instead of making music for Jesus that He would want, you’re writing music to try to make another hit.”
Related: How This Indie Christian Artist Stays Rooted in the Lord
He’s only in his early twenties, but Queen has already learned some of the most important lessons related to creating meaningful Christian music. When he first started, he was focused on writing songs that would go viral but only found success when he decided to surrender his career to the Lord and simply create songs that spoke to God’s greatness.
“I was writing songs that I thought would work for the radio — what I thought labels wanted,” Queen told Relevant last summer. “And they weren’t really clicking. So finally I said, ‘Forget it. I’m just gonna make something I like.’ That’s where it started.”
“There’s this hunger for truth,” the singer added, discussing why his songs connect with audiences. “Even among people who don’t go to church. They’re tired of being sold something. They want what’s real. And I think people are starting to see that Jesus isn’t just a fairytale. There’s something here that actually holds up.”
He pulls a lot of fans, so it could be easy to take the credit. But Queen understand that God gave him both his talent and work ethic.
“I never want my relationship to Jesus to be transactional. Like, hey, let me call God. I’m going to come to you and read this so that I can write a song about this so that people will click on it on social media. Because, that’s not how relationships work…” he said. “And so, you know, it’s like realizing that that’s honestly the hardest thing for me because it’s like, I write songs about the Bible. So, it’s like reading my Bible and going to the Lord, that being my relationship and then everything else coming second.”
It is amazing to see Queen remain humble as he experiences such quick success at such a young age. His willingness to discuss how he remains rooted in the Lord speaks to his character and will surely inspire millions of his fans to do the same.
Read Next: What This Christian Singer Learned from His Dad About Faith
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