The Christ-Shaped Life of Rich Mullins

In 1988, Rich Mullins wrote Awesome God, a song that became one of the best-selling Christian anthems of its generation. Royalties poured in. Radio stations played it constantly. By every measure of the music industry, Mullins had arrived.

And then he did something that baffled everyone around him.

He asked his accountant to pay him the average American salary — roughly $24,000 a year at the time — and funnel the rest to his church and various charities. He never even knew how much his music earned. He didn't want to know. He was afraid that if he saw the number, he might start to believe he deserved it.

In his final years, Mullins left Nashville entirely and moved to a Navajo reservation in New Mexico, where he taught music to children in a small church. He traded recording studios for cinder-block classrooms. He traded fame for obscurity. He traded comfort for purpose.

When he died in a car accident in 1997 at forty-one years old, he owned almost nothing.

The Apostle Paul wrote, "I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8). Rich Mullins didn't just sing about the greatness of God — he arranged his entire life around it, surrendering what most people spend a lifetime chasing.

Sacrifice isn't always dramatic. Sometimes it looks like a Christ-follower quietly signing away a royalty check, month after month, because they've already found something worth more than gold.