Priscilla Shirer: See the Value in Seasons of Waiting | Praise on TBN

Priscilla Shirer sits down with Anthony Evans in a new interview to discuss his journey to make his new album, Revive, and the value and direction you can find in seasons of waiting. Know that God is aligning your footsteps!

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The entire culture surrounding us in society, but also in ministry Mhmm. Is hustle grind.
Keep going all the way to the end, the end of your self, the end of your physical health, the end of your family, people are afraid in every way, but they feel like around them, there’s this constant pressure to keep going.
And what you’re describing is having the courage to pause for a second.
Take a deep breath Ask the lord about the season he has you in right now. Right.
And then trust that this is not a fruitless season, even though it might feel or seem less outwardly productive
Right.
That the lord is using this as groundwork for what’s coming next.
For those of you who don’t know we’re siblings, but just just in case you were wondering.
We are siblings. This is my baby brother. We have their 4 of us. Crystal’s the oldest, then me.
Mhmm.
And Anthony, and Jonathan is the youngest. So, Anthony, are right there in the middle?
Yes.
So we have this little special special little bond thing Right. Right.
Have all these deep conversations that we get to have one of them today.
I’m excited because you have new music?
I I do. I have new music and and a new journey and a new experience, and I’m glad to be able to talk about it with you.
And all the audits. I need to give the audience a breakdown though. You named our siblings. Yes.
Crystal is mislogical, like, the tip oldest oldest sister, miss the smart, like, Everything’s methodical. Yes.
And then Priscilla is mispersonality. I gotta tell y’all she got in so much trouble for talking too much growing up, but now it’s all worked out nicely.
So that’s it. Then my brother Jonathan’s an athlete and very determined, but I just I sit here and have flashbacks as being kids, and you just be a mispersonality.
And I’m like, this is great.
So anyway The thing is though, you said Crystal was the smart one.
No. You’re you’re And then you can see
me and said I had personalities.
Yes. Within this You’re smart. Right under that.
Okay.
You know what I’m saying?
Alright. Fine. Moving on.
Okay. Yes. Sorry.
I would like to make clear before we even begin. You are the guest. Okay. Got it.
And I am the interviewer. In other words, this is my show. Okay.
I get to say and ask you whatever it is that I wanna say to you
and
what I wanna ask you because what I’m thrilled about is that I we get to introduce to everyone that you have brand new music out after how many years have you now been making music
Oh, 2024. So I started when I was 8. Or or so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It’s a 24 years. Okay. Um.
Mhmm. And this is your what number album? Eleven. Eleven albums in. That’s a lot of investment of creativity.
Of, um, vocal capacity, and you’ve been stretching yourself.
The kind of music you’ve been doing through the years has shifted and changed Mhmm.
Depending on where you are in your life.
Yes.
And the this is the thing I love about your music is you’re always writing songs, whether it’s a collaborative effort or whether you’re writing it yourself, you’re all ray always coming out of a place of where you’ve been in your life.
Mhmm. They reflect what you’ve been processing spiritually, emotionally, mentally.
And this project, which is named Revive, talk to me about what in your life has been leading you towards even the title of the record before we even get to Right.
The songs themselves. Just what was happening in your life that made you wanna about reviving, being revived.
What was a lot of things that was hap that was was happening in our lives, really, with with our family and a lot of prayer is not being answered the way that I wanted them to be and my faith being in question, to be honest.
Like, I didn’t make music because I felt like an actor getting into character to go sing songs.
I no longer believed. That’s why I stopped. I would go sing places, but I would talk to the people who had me honestly and be like, I’m not in the play.
Like, I’m not recovered from what life has done to me, and I’m not aligned with what I’m singing right now.
So it took me a second to kinda like, I don’t wanna I don’t wanna feel like an actor singing Christian music.
That that’s that’s not a good feeling.
Yeah.
So what happened is is I had to make a decision.
Do I just continue to let my faith deteriorate or do I take the steps and take take do what I can and then believe that god’s gonna do what I can’t and add himself to the effort that forward because I didn’t even know which way to go to recover from, like, for example, us losing our mom or in that way, um, or having the emotional spaces in my life just clouded.
I didn’t know which way to go.
So the album’s called Revive because I started taking steps, and I felt god bringing things back to life in my heart and in my experience.
And I was like, The people need to know and experience this.
So it’s about the music, but it’s more about the message that he can bring dead things to life in your heart that you think that are just done.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here’s the question I wanna ask you. It’s like 5 questions.
His mark up in my my brain from everything you just said.
But Did you keep going even while you knew you didn’t feel like what it was you were singing or you didn’t feel like showing up?
There are a whole lot of people that had been through loss just like we have. Mhmm.
Evastating hardships one after the other, because not only did we lose mom, but there were 9 family members in the scope of 5 years that we lost.
It was like back to back loss and chaos in our lives, and you’re saying that you had to keep showing up to do a job.
That you didn’t feel emotionally, spiritually connected to.
Right.
So I’m wondering, did you pull back and stop doing things, or did you keep going while just recognizing at the same time I need to be working on the other area of my life?
So so many people that have to keep going
Yes. Yes.
While they’re struggling.
Yes. It was a balance because I had keep going. Yeah. But I would be strategic.
The honest conversations that have being vulnerable and honest and authentic with the whether it was the a church, you know, the church in Florida, I go too often sitting down with those pastors and saying, this is what’s going on in my life right now.
So to get on the stage, I’d I it was hard, but I didn’t feel like an actor because they knew the truth.
Because they knew the truth
because they knew the truth and then doing things with our family that was undergirding and helpful to me.
I got rid of the things that I could get rid of that were that were draining me of the energy to work on myself.
Okay. And that that varies for everybody watching.
There are certain things though that we can clear off our plate that leave capacity for healing because you’re not exhausted
Yes. And
and I had to strategically work that out in in my life. And don’t
you think that it takes a measure of courage Oh.
To be willing to, number 1, be off authentic with the people around you that you can trust
Mhmm. Mhmm.
Um, to know the truth about what’s happening with you, but it also takes a level of courage to say, you know what?
This, this, this, this. People may be appreciating this. People may be applauding me for this.
Other folks may think based on what they prioritize that I need to do this, but it takes a level of courage to say, you know what?
Actually, I’m I’m doing this, and this is draining me. This is not ping
me. Right. And you actually told you you taught me that.
You taught me the power of no, and you taught me the art of when you say no to something, you’re sign you’re saying a simultaneous yes to something else.
So when I said no to whatever opportunity that people thought was amazing and huge, I was saying yes to my spiritual well-being.
And that yes matters more than the no There’ll be another opportunity. You you said this to me.
There’ll be another opportunity to go do that.
There won’t necessarily be another opportunity for you to walk this walk forward in healing at this time.
Yeah.
So that was the decision that I had had to make.
And some of the nose were hard until you experienced
The yes. Yeah.
Yeah. When you can start to experience the yes, like me sitting here with a light heart and talking about music, I thought that would never happen again.
So but that was because the nos landed at this yes. That’s good.
And this yes in this project too. Yeah.
Like, that’s a big yes that you got to have the mental margin, the spiritual margin, the emotional margin, and the sparks of creativity that are required to be able to put any sort of project together in a valuable way.
Yep. All of that diminishes when we just keep going and going and going while not tending to our emotional needs.
Absolutely. The the sorry.
No. Go
ahead. The the depth of these songs, and I I is because of of that.
Like, if I wouldn’t have taken the time to heal and just cranked out more music, it would not be it wouldn’t have the depth of these songs.
There’s a song on the album called 828 that’s Romans 828 him working things together for your good, but that’s coming from a different place now.
Like, we’ve quoted that verse for years.
A lot of us, that’s coming from a replaced or the bridge of that song is Adhesians 320.
Um, now to him who’s able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ask or imagine.
Sometimes I stop that verse there, and I don’t go in to the end of that verse that talks about the power that is already in us.
I was not experiencing the power within me that was already in me because I was so attracted by doing too much.
And I did I was not con I think the enemy’s objective is to distract us from the power that is within us so that we will not be able to experience exceedingly abundantly more and I was distracted
Yes.
From that power.
Come on. You’re preaching. I
I just really was. You know, daddy, I’m talking a lot because I’ve had too much coffee,
but I’m so excited. Slow down. So I always have to tell him to slow down.
But I have yeah. It’s a it’s a Your
coffee situation is out of control, sir. Okay. Okay. Dad. Gonna say something
to take us to the circus growing up, and I loved animals so so much.
And I remember seeing the elephants in the parking lot and being mesmerized by the fact that this elephant had a chain around its ankle that was in a stake in the ground, and it didn’t realize if he just pulled one good time He’d be running the show.
Try hard to pull things down.
Yeah.
But he was fooled to he forgot the power within him because of that chain that was around his ankle.
He’d been trained to stay put Exactly.
The enemy’s objective is to train us to stay put and forget that we have the power within us to just do the effort to pull that pull that break that chain, and we can do it.
But if he can keep us distracted, we don’t experience it. Don’t experience don’t experience it.
If that
this album is revived uh, called revived because I’ve now experienced the power of breaking breaking those those chains
in my life. I felt that in my spirit. I felt it in my spirit.
That’s that’s a big deal because you’re the you’re the speaker. No.
Okay. But this is something people may not know about you, which I’m sure lends itself to your songwriting and your creative capacity, but you are a master illustrator.
Oh.
You’re a great storyteller. And, you know, that, like, we always are commenting on when we’re having conversations about regular life stuff, you are able to pull out an illustration like about the circus and an elephant and make a substantial spiritual point about something that’s impactful, and people can grab hold of that.
So you do that through your music too.
You’re telling a story that has spiritual principle and encouragement to help people to stay buoyed up in the midst of life’s hard stuff.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
So describe a little bit more about this disparity you were seeing in your, um, work, your ministry, and what you were feeling.
Tell us how you were feeling in your heart, your soul, in your mind that was causing a discrepancy between what you were singing.
I felt like I was I felt like I was playing injured. I felt like an athlete.
Here it is. Here it is. Here it is.
Like an athlete who has a sprained ankle but the athlete that everybody expects to be on the court dunking, so they just wrap their ankle and go out and keep playing.
And, ultimately, the damage that can be done by you playing injured, you can be completely forever taken off the court if you keep playing injured.
Yeah.
So that’s what I felt like. I felt like Something’s off.
I know what I’m capable of, uh, with ministry and myself.
I know what I’m capable of, but something is off. And I didn’t make the choice to to sit down.
I, uh, the Olympics 2020 Simone Biles, the champion of the universe.
Everybody knows she’s about to, I mean, the expectation on her was huge.
And she went up to do this vault and landed crazy, and everybody thought, what is happening to the champion.
There was she was capable of a lot, but her mind was not right.
And she had to admit I have the twisties.
And if these and if I keep going for y’all, I’m going to injure myself in a way that I might not be able to recover from because I’m trying to perform for y’all.
Yeah. So I that’s what I felt like, and I had to get to the point where if I keep going, like, I have the twisty spiritually, mentally, emotionally, I have the twisties, and I have to stop because if I keep going the injury to me is And the people and the people attached
to you
is going to be a problem. So that’s that’s what I that’s what I felt like.
And so I had to, you know, uh, let let people down in some ways, but
I I look I don’t know why Anthony and I often joke about and comment on the fact that we are thinking similar things or, like, we’ll be one of us will text the other one when the other one is composing a tech to send to the other one.
Like, it happens all the time.
Or you wear a purple shirt today? That way this purple I don’t know. Like, today,
we showed up, and it looks like we tried to coordinate. And we didn’t. We just showed up like this.
Yeah.
And the reason I say that is because I kid you not yesterday.
I was thinking about the Simone Biles situation.
The courage that it took that girl to say, I don’t care because, I mean, I don’t remember the media Oh, yeah.
I remember people canceling her speaking negatively about her. Why in the world? You’re representing the US.
Mean, think about the pressure. Yes. You’re representing all of us, and you’re gonna give up.
And I just remember seeing her look squarely into a camera to do a news little conference that she was doing.
And she was just saying and describing what the twisties were and that she knew she could decimate her entire career, not to mention the quality of her life with an injury if she just kept going because everybody else wanted her
to. Exactly.
The courage it takes to admit something is out of balance here, whether emotionally, spiritually, even physically, we can run ourselves into the ground physically.
In the in the state in the name of ministry,
in the name of ministry. So it takes courage.
What you’re saying is freeing somebody up right now is what it’s doing because the entire culture surrounding us in society, but also in ministry Mhmm.
Is hustle grind. Keep going all the way to the end, the end of yourself, the end of your physical health, the end of your family, people are afraid in every way, but they feel like around them, there’s this constant pressure to keep going.
And what you’re describing is having the courage to pause for a second. Take a deep breath.
Ask the lord about the season he has you in right now.
And then trust that this is not a fruitless season even though it might feel or seem less outwardly productive
Right.
That the lord is using this as groundwork for what’s coming next.
Exactly. Exactly. That when when you talk about, um, the season of kinda just waiting and you watch people, people around you are moving.
This is so random, but here’s another story.
Now I’m I’m I’m aware of it now that you’re talking about the illustrations. I, you know, I love boats.
I love being on water. I love it so much.
Without they took us to the engine room because I was so intrigued about how this thing actually works.
And then they got to this point where they showed us in the engine room this automatic automatic stabilizer system that that that this yacht had.
And and bottom line is that when waves hit it, there was something inside of it that shot water out on the side that a wave hit on so that would not capsize.
It was an automated system that was built into it But for that system to be built in, it had to go to dry dock and had to sit it was made for the water, but had to sit on the dry dock to get this system put in it so it will not turn over when the waves hit.
The the time that I have taken off was my drydock time.
Well, I, everybody else is sailing and having the greatest time, but what got put in me through work on my mental health I’m like, obviously, my spiritual health are stabilizer.
So when life’s waves are hitting me, I don’t not feel the wave, but I don’t capsize because uh, Romans 828 will shoot out of my heart.
Our Philippines 16 will shoot out of my heart on the other side while while the scenarios are hit are hitting me hard.
So I Yeah.
So you need to know that I’m gonna steal all of that. I can assure you
When y’all read this in a book, I I told her I was
The first time I’ll give you credit after the the lord the lord told me.
I said it was? Okay. I’m just saying, yeah, that that’s kind of
That’s great. People need to hear that.
And out of you being at the dry dock, a whole new project, a project that wouldn’t have the depth, it wouldn’t have the creativity wouldn’t have the beauty and power that it’s going to have in people’s lives if you hadn’t taken time to just let the lord stabilize you.
Okay. We’re gonna talk about the music, but I wanna ask you one more question because you mentioned specifically mental health.
No. Yeah. And I I want to sit here for just few minutes and talk to you about this because this has been a big deal for you.
Um, and you have invested in your mental health.
Yes.
I think that folks, particularly in the church, It’s more and more, um, acceptable now to discuss openly. Yes.
But, um, it hasn’t been historically.
Right.
So I think you even discussing it now will give somebody permission to realize they can address their mental health how what brought you to that point of realizing, uh, I need just like I might get a trainer to help me with my physical health Yeah.
Or a financial advisor to help me because I wanna plan and budget well for retirement. Mhmm.
You’re like, I need some training. Somebody to gird me up in my mental health.
What brought you to that point and what have you done over the course of more than a decade now.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, you just walked through this.
Yeah. You you mentioned the trainer or the or the, uh, somebody help you with your finances.
I liken it to a tutor.
In 9th grade, I had the hardest time in math class, I could not understand.
Miss Simmons would be at the board explaining this formula that works every time.
And she had a book of truths formula she was working out on the board, and I had my my aunt my, uh, hand up the whole class.
And finally, she goes, Anthony, in order for you to pass, you’re going to need tutoring.
And we have a book of truths here.
We have the formulas that always work, but you’re having a hard time understanding these formulas.
So in order if I did not fail because I admitted that I needed tutoring, mental health and therapy and working through things is not saying that the Bible doesn’t have the power or that you’re you don’t trust the lord.
It’s saying, If I re be anxious for nothing, I need tools to help me be anxious for nothing because that’s not
How do I do that?
How do I do? Yeah. And implementing those in end of my life and and having to admit to myself, I think it’s hard for Christians or people with faith or people in professional ministry to admit I need help.
But once I did that and people started coming to my life who were trained on a on a, uh, um, in mental health.
Yes. And I got to tie that into my faith That changed everything.
I learned the art of being kind to myself. I learned about toxic relationships.
And actually, because of my faith, I was setting myself up and getting into scenarios where I became a victim of my own compassion, because I was forgiving, and now that’s a there comes a point where you know, like, if my Apple if my MacBook breaks or something, there comes a point where the restart doesn’t work.
You have to send it back to the manufacturer because they know how to fix it.
I wouldn’t send people back to the manufacturer. I would not turn them back over to god.
I would still keep trying to fix and fix and fix, and that was messing with my mind.
So I had to learn I had to I mean, those are just we could talk about this forever, but those are just a few things.
And once I got rid of toxic relationships, once I started being kind self.
Once I admitted that I needed tutoring, uh, you know, tutoring nursing, that changed everything.
That was a major part of the revival in my heart.
And it I know it’d be a major part of the viewer’s revival in their their heart of having tools to help them.
Yes. So you’re not saying any of that for you placed or removed the primacy of the Bible of prayer of faith, all those things.
You’re just saying, here’s what I know to be true.
Now I’m gonna take this to someone so that they can have a conversation with me on the practical way to live in light of what I just read.
Practable way to live in light of my faith. That that’s where the
How does q+2 equal 4 in this next twenty 4 hours of my actual day?
Exactly. Exactly. That’s it. And and, I remember just having to clear things out of my life when we were growing up our mom who we love so much.
She’s the best cook. She’s just with cook stuff.
But I remember she would not come place things on the table. If I had my homework in, like Yeah.
Twinkies or whatever on the table, dinner dinner would be Twinkies. I know. Just random snacks because too much.
Uh, but she would keep the she would not, um, serve the dinner until I cleared the table until I cleared and set the table.
Table off y’all set the table.
Yes. And so me working on my mental health, I believe that happens a lot with the lord.
He has something fresh for us, but we have clouded up our lives went so much and the clearing the table of my heart, my emotions, my life, I got things placed in front of me that now make it so much easier, but what would prepared for you.
They were prepared to give to you, but you had to clear the space so you could receive
Yes. And when I didn’t clear the space for our mother, the meal would get cold.
And when you don’t clear the space in your life or what god has for you, what he has piping hot and ready, can start to cool down.
You may miss some of those things.
So that’s also part of her vibe is and and part of mental health and everything is just kinda clearing out all the clutter and allowing god to place something that he had for me.
And every time I clear, he places something down. So now it’s easy. I’m like, okay.
Okay. That’s alright.
Because he has something.
Because you have a track record that faithful, and he’s good.
He’s faithful.
And he’s kind. And just in case anybody’s discouraged because in that last illustration, you mentioned you know, waiting too long, the meal gets cold.
God’s grace and mercy is so sufficient that it is retroactive
Yep.
That he’s like, don’t worry about that. I got a good whole microwave system here.
Or I’ll do another. Yeah.
Or I’ll do something better. That’s what god does. Always. Always. Nothing is lost with him. No.
And out of this season of your life, of a lot of hard work because I I don’t want anybody to think you were sitting at the dry dock just like enjoying the sunrise.
No. You no. No. Uh-uh. You
you’ve done a lot had a lot of hard conversations
Mhmm.
With therapists, with your family, with the people close to you that you can be authentic and vulnerable with.
A lot of hard conversations, a lot of tears, a lot of struggle Mhmm.
As you try to contend with the word of god and what it is that he wants you to do and And then the creativity that god’s so he’s so good that in seasons where we feel like nothing is happening all of a sudden, you start to see through the dry cracks of life, just little bits, little glimpses of growth and greenery.
And like the lord’s saying, I’m still here.
Yeah.
I got it. Uh-huh. Some goods coming out of this. And now we have revived.
Yeah. Yeah.
It’s such a good record, Anthony.
Oh, thank you.
We’ve had I keep saying record. Does that date mean we still It’s
it’s kind of a throwback term. You know what I mean? It’s a good record album. You know?
What do you call it? A album? What do the artist call it? Yeah.
An album record. We say that. Body of work.
A new body of work That sounds so official. Okay.
It’s a little over
But over
the top.
The thing is, I’m glad you mentioned that because it is a body of work.
And in this day and age where Everybody’s downloading one song here, one song there.
What I see in revive is a story that you have told from beginning to end. Mhmm.
And I think when someone grabs full of the whole story, there’s a revival that’s gonna place in them because they’ll see the trajectory where you were headed Mhmm.
From point a to point