A number of years ago I had attended my church, St. Francis Anglican Church, on a Sunday morning.  My father was the pastor of that church at that time.  It was a normal Sunday except for what was going on inside of me.  I don't know what it was exactly but I was just upset for some reason.  I left the service a number of times to get tissues.  I was a mess.  I just felt...bad...defeated...

I spent the whole service basically trying to hide my defeat.  No body knew I was in such a decomposed state yet, for some reason my dad decided to issue an alter call.  I think in his whole time at that parish he had only done this two or three times during a regular service.  It was not a regular occurrence.  So I recognized that maybe God was doing something in me, so I went up for prayer.  It so happens that I was the only one to go up.  My dad and his lay assistant who just happened to be my mother, came to my side and prayed for me.

During that prayer, my mother was listening to God and told me that she felt that I had only scratched the surface with my music.  It was a word that at first seemed like a mother's encouragement, but ended up being a prophetic word that was issued more that once to me. 

It was given to me once again when my father had invited a team of people who ministered in the prophetic to our church.  Sure enough, a member of the team prophesied over me and the band I was in.  It was a word that was much like my mother's some time before.  It spoke of a ministry that would be much larger than it was at the time.

Over the years since then I have had a few other instances where people have prayed for me and told me afterwards that my ministry had only just begun.  I share this because it is key to the events that lead up to me deciding to start Forward Motion.  

As a typically impatient person, to be told that this is only the beginning was torture from time to time.  I had developed into a place where I wanted nothing more than to be in a place where I could focus on serving God with music all the time instead of doing it from time to time when I wasn't working and I wasn't too busy with school or whatever else we all tend to cram into our lives.  This was my dream and my hearts desire, but it just wasn't happening.

I knew all to well that I was certainly not the first to have such a dream and I braced myself to find that God wasn't really calling me there.  Or to find that maybe when God says "bigger" he meant that figuratively.  I would maybe come to a place that my little music ministry was impacting few people but in a huge way.  Not what one might normally associate with a large music ministry, but I was ready for that to be what He meant all the same.  I'm still braced for that even now.

Over time though, I began to wonder if all these people prophesying over we was not a mere coincidence.  About two years before the release of Forward Motion, I was let go from the job I was in.  It was a blow I was not prepared for.  I had no where to go.  I had been working in the computer field for 4 years.  That was where my formal training was, so I set out to stay there in that field.  I applied for probably around 30 jobs.  I had applied for jobs I was qualified for, and for some that I would need to be trained in first.  I didn't matter how qualified or un-qualified I was, I didn't get a single interview.

This lasted a few months until I decided that I just needed to get working.  Even if it was a job that had nothing to do with how I was trained.  In the end, I landed a job as a sales person for a music store in Calgary.  It was the first music oriented job I had applied for.  I got it immediately.  I found this interesting that God would be changing my line of work after all the training I had taken.

I carried on in the job for a number of months before I began to be unsatisfied.   It was a commission job that often left me wondering if there would be any pay cheque at all from month to month.  It was a challenge. 

I reached a low point one weekend when my wife and I (then fiancé) were on a trip to visit my sister in Regina.  I was tired of being in the industry I loved, but unable to fully engage in my passion as a musician.  I knew that it had to be in God's time, which frustrated me even more.  I was so tired of waiting and I knew that if I made it happen my self, it may not carry God's blessing and I didn't want that at all.

On this trip we stopped in Medicine Hat where my parents live and spent the night.  That evening I shared with them my frustrations with my sales job and how I was generally frustrated by being told over and over that my music was going to go somewhere, when it never did.  They were sympathetic, as was my fiancé.  I was so grumpy on that trip. 

We left Medicine Hat for Regina.  It was almost white out conditions.  The roads were not nice.  Snow everywhere.  I was even grumpier.  So I sped.  Well, by the grace and perhaps the tolerance of God, we stayed on the road.  I did however, get a nice speeding ticket.  This pushed me over the edge.  I was so angry at life in general and now I had to get a speeding ticket just to top it all off.  And what was worse is that I knew it was my fault.  I could blame the ticket on no one else. 

It's a five hour trip from Medicine Hat to Regina.  Kristy and I spoke a total of about 5 sentences the whole way.  It was miserable.  I'm amazed she still decided to marry me.  Well, we arrived in Regina and it was time to be cordial for the hosts of the places we were staying so I managed to bury everything and go on with the social parts of our trip.  We didn't really talk about the whole life situation while we were there.

On the way home, Kristy and I started talking it all out.  We came up with a wild idea.  What if I were to quit my job - or at least go part time, and record a CD.  So many people had asked me to record in the past.  Maybe we could pre-sell some and get the funds we needed to make it happen.  We planned it all out.  We were going to raise the money needed to upgrade the home studio to a slightly better place than it was. The hope was to upgrade it so that it might be a place where I could turn out a somewhat professional sounding CD.  Then I'd see where God took it.

We made a list of what would need to happen in order to make this happen.  We'd need the money.  We'd need a place to set the studio up.  We decided to ask Holy Trinity if they would be willing to lend me an extra office.  Our philosophy was to start trying to open doors.  If they opened, we'd go through. 

On the way back to Calgary, we stopped once again in Medicine Hat for a meal.  We shared our crazy idea with my parents.  Being parents, they were a little skeptical I think.  I think the rule is, never encourage your kids when they say, "Mom.  Dad.  I'm quitting my job to follow my music."  They did agree to pray for me though.  We went into the living room and my father began by offering a sincere prayer for my current situation.  Soon after, my mother asked if we could all listen.  We all agreed and spent a little while just listening.

Immediately I had this picture in my head.  It was very vivid and it didn't make any sense to me at all.  It was a view of smoke rising off the ground and suspended in the smoke were...things.  I couldn't identify what was in the cloud.  The picture was vivid enough that I was able to study the picture in my head for a while.  I first thought that I was seeing leaves.  Then I noticed that these things were colorful so, they couldn't be leaves.  I then thought butterflies.  My mother loves butterflies.  I thought that would be nice to be able to tell her afterwards that I saw butterflies.  Then I noticed that the wings were not attached to anything.  Each colored thing moved independently.  In then end I decided they must be flower petals.  Why?  I had no idea at all.  I was frustrated to be given a really vivid picture that meant absolutely nothing to me.

Just then, my mother began to share what she had seen.  She described a garden path that I was on.  She described how the path had rose petals on it.  My jaw hit the floor!  I was literally speechless for a moment.  I couldn't believe the connection that was suggested by the two pictures.  I couldn't believe that right after I had finished deciding that the things were flower petals, my mother chimed in with a rose petal analogy.  As I let my mother finish, she explained how she felt that God was saying that there is a path that I am on.  Sometimes the path has rose petals, and sometimes it doesn't.  But there is a path.  My mother felt that I should keep on the path and see where it leads me.

So we finished driving home and I was in a totally different place emotionally.  I felt like God had taken notice of me again.  I felt encouraged again.  I kept going to work and I started approaching doors.  The next day I asked for a room for the studio.  The vestry met and offered me the room of my choice.  This was just the beginning.  From this point everything started to fall into place.  The funds were raised very easily considering the amount we needed.  Instead of providing enough to simply upgrade the home studio, I was offered enough to build an entire new studio in the church.  All new equipment.  I was incredible.

The next thing I knew, I was moving to a more casual outside sales position in my job and starting as a full time church employee.  My job was to continue running the music team for Holy Trinity, take care of the computers, and record a CD which would become Forward Motion. 

In April 2003, I began this new job.   Forward Motion was completed at the end of that year.  It was an amazing turn of events.  The amazing thing is how faithful God has been.  The thing that might seem surprising is that I still don't feel as though I've "arrived" or anything.  I definitely have more to learn.  I definitely can learn more about song writing and music in general.  I'm no virtuoso.  I'm definitely not rich.

The other interesting thing is that immediately after starting the Forward Motion CD, I was playing at a conference where there was a ministry team offering prophetic ministry.  Even after being moved into what would seem to be the perfect job for me, God still saw it fit to tell me through one of those ministers that "You ain't seen nothin' yet."  Apparently there's more - or so it would seem.  I believe that prophetic words are all meant to be tested.  They are meant to be placed on our mental shelves and left there for a while as we pray for them and await some kind of confirmation.  One should never presume that any prophet automatically knows God's will for them.  All prophets are human and may miss the mark from time to time.  So I wait. 

I guess I'll know what that might have meant soon enough.

Anthony Packwood+