Barefoot on the Stage

Rich Mullins wrote Awesome God, one of the most recognizable worship songs of the last forty years. It filled arenas. It sold millions of records. And Rich Mullins never knew how much money it made.

He arranged for his music royalties to be deposited into a charitable trust. From that trust, he received a salary equal to what the average American worker earned that year — nothing more. He never saw the financial statements. He didn't want to.

While Nashville's Christian music industry glittered with tour buses and branding deals, Mullins moved to a Navajo reservation to teach music to children. He performed his concerts barefoot — not as a gimmick, but as a quiet reminder to himself that he stood on holy ground that wasn't his to own.

When friends asked why he lived so simply, he would say something disarming: that he didn't trust himself with more.

There is a kind of humility that doesn't just refuse the spotlight — it refuses to even count what the spotlight has earned. Paul wrote to the Philippians, "I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8).

Mullins understood something most of us resist: that the moment we start measuring what our gifts have earned us, we have already begun to believe they belong to us. True humility holds its gifts with open hands, knowing every note, every word, every breath was borrowed from the Almighty.