In this 18‑minute live stream, Arthur Ayotte blends personal testimony, theological reflection, and spoken‑word performance. He opens by introducing his first poem, “Follow Christ,” which he originally performed for his youth group, and explains that the stream will include poetry readings, a freestyle segment driven by chat prompts, and informal discussion. The core of the talk centers on the experience of feeling distant from God despite earnest spiritual practices. Arthur cites Hebrews’s definition of faith, the story of Job, and Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” to illustrate how suffering and perceived divine silence can coexist with genuine belief. He argues that God’s presence is not contingent on human expectations and that apparent “good” in life may be temporary, whereas God’s ultimate plan is benevolent. Throughout, he interweaves scriptural quotations (e.g., Proverbs 9:10, NASB translation of Job), personal reflections on purpose, and a critique of hedonistic notions of goodness. After a brief theological exposition, he performs his poem “Follow Christ,” which explores surrender, temptation, and the paradox of human strength versus divine grace. The stream concludes with a spontaneous freestyle where Arthur attempts to rhyme challenging words (e.g., “partnership,” “appendix,” “atmosphere”) while commenting on technical glitches and low viewership, maintaining a conversational, self‑deprecating tone.
Chapters
All right, all right, all righty. How's my audio, everybody? Hello? Okay, because my audio is fine. I hope the audio sounds fine. So welcome. Today I'm just going to be hopefully talking about a little bit of my poetry, about my faith, and what that all means to me. And so as I get into it, I'll also like perform some of them, or not perform really, but just, I guess, say some of them. Like my first ever poem that I wrote in front of my youth group. audience. It was called— it's actually on my YouTube page. It's called Follow Christ. Uh, I believe it's like, Don't But Count the Cost. Watch that water. Um, Follow Christ But Count the Cost. And so it's a little bit about how, well, how I engage with my faith and how I shared it with other people. You know what, give me a second. Let me get some water. I'll be right back. All right. So sorry about that. Well, there's some water. I feel like every time I go live, my voice just gives out. All right, so like I said earlier, I'm gonna share a little bit of my spoken word, a little bit of my faith, um, and just, you know, communicate with y'all, talk with y'all. I'm gonna do a freestyle near the end, so like y'all just drop a comment, I will ask for like a word, an emotion, something going through, and then I'll make a live spoken word off of that. And if you don't know what spoken word is, you're about to find out. Um, so yeah. So first thing, um, I want to talk about, I'm gonna be using scripture as I conversate, is I just want to talk about, um, faith when it feels distant. So I know a lot of us probably go through those seasons in our lives in which we are trying our best to get closer to God, but it feels like the closer we're getting to him, the further he gets away from us, if that makes sense. Like, we're starting to go to church, we're starting to read our Bible, starting to do all these things, and we have this expectation that once I get to this level of faith, Then God would just be there, you know, like if I just grow my faith, it should be God at the end of this. And so it's difficult, especially when we're building our faith, to be like, okay, I expect God to appear. I expect God to be, you know, to be active in my life, especially when I'm pursuing him. And so it's difficult when we feel distant from God, even though we seem to be doing our very best to get closer to God. And I know a lot of people, a lot of friends of mine who have this conversation with me like, Arthur, I'm doing everything that we're supposed to do, but I don't feel God, you know. And it's difficult, especially when you're going through hard seasons, because a lot of reasons people get closer to the Lord is simply to help fulfill, you know, something they're missing or help ease the pain of the seasons of life. And they— that's why they get closer to the Lord. And if he's just— and if he doesn't seem present there, it feels fake almost. Um, And so that's understandable, right? Faith is what faith is, the substance of things unseen, right? But things hopeful, actually, let me look that up. I don't want to misquote it. I know there's— I don't know where that even comes from. Hebrews: Faith is the confidence of what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see, right? Um, so the true faith is faith and confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. So it's a faith in the things that we don't see, right? But we, we hope for it. And so it's difficult to have faith when your faith is feeling, you know, it's not adequate. It's not the right tool, it feels like, to get closer to the Lord. And so, yeah, I understand that struggle, and I think we all go through that. But we must understand that just because the Lord feels distant Doesn't mean he's not there. I love this. I guess it's a quote that's used. It's like, well, when the teacher is giving a test, they're silent. They're silent. And so sometimes it's like that. Sometimes we're going through seasons, right? We're going through a test, and at the moment it's it's dead quiet. Like oh, where's the Lord at? It's it's silent. I don't hear him. I don't feel Lord's presence in this season, in this moment of my life. And again, that's completely understandable because the Lord is not one who simply— and this is difficult to understand, but he's not one who simply gives to our whims, right? He doesn't simply hear to fulfill our desires. He's not a genie. He's a, he's a, he's a being that created all things. He's the Alpha and the Omega, right? He's God. He has no obligation to serve us or any obligations to even be present with us, but he chooses to be, right? And so I'm not saying that like, oh, God is spitefully mean. No, it's like, well, God, he has a plan. And he says in the scripture, tells us that he does all things for the good of those who love him. His plan for you is good for those who love him. It's good for you. You know, he desires to do good for you. But sometimes what we see as good for us isn't exactly what's actually good for us. Like, there's people who hold hedonistic views where they are always chasing after their own desires and they think, well, that's good for me. Money, good for me. Food, good for me. Ice cream, good for me, right? All these things, like, these are good for me. And really they're just satisfying or just temporarily satisfying us, right? There's certain things that we view or that people view as good that we know aren't objectively good or aren't even good over time. You know, it's like temporal goodness. So God knows what's good for you, even when it seems as if he doesn't. And a lot of things I've learned in my life is I wouldn't be the person I am without those hard seasons. And I know you hear this all the time, and when you're in it, it sucks. And honestly, it feels like there's no way this could be used for good. How could you possibly tear all this down around me and then expect me to believe that something good is going to come out of this? And that's a temptation to blame God and to point the finger at God and say, How dare you, right? How dare you allow all these terrible things to occur in my life and expect me to worship you in the face of that? That's hard. That's really difficult. And it's— and the case is, it's, it's nearly— it's merely— it's nearly impossible. Well, how about this? It's impossible to do it Without God, is it possible to do it without the Holy Spirit? The temptation is too great. Every time I talk about this, I'm reminded of Job, right? When he is—he's lost everything. The devil came to the presence of God and said, or the devil was in the presence of God, and God said. Where have you been? Right? And he answers, all around the world. And he asks him, he says, what do you think of my servant Job? And he basically— and Satan basically responds, well, he's only treat— or he's only acting in such a manner because you are blessing him. Take those things away from him and he will curse you. Job didn't curse God in the face of losing just about everything. Except his own life. He might have questioned God, but he didn't curse God, right? And he didn't lose faith in himself. You can't lose faith in yourself. Can't lose faith in God. And once that season was over, the Lord blessed him 10 times 10, an abundance. And that's not to say that God will bless you in abundance just because you're faithful, because that might not be his will for you. But we must understand this is a temporary life. Whether we are to struggle for the sake of those around us, that's up to him. Paul asked the Lord many times to get rid of that certain Thorn in his side. And how was the— how was the response? He said, um, he said, rather, I will boast in my weakness so that the power of Christ may work through me, right? It is through his weakness that Christ used it. It was through that thorn in his side that God used him. And so sometimes you do have a thorn in your side, and this is an imperfect life full of sin. and depravity. And so you will go through seasons of, of pain, seasons of failure, seasons of discomfort, seasons of just the illest of things. But you can't lose faith in God, and you can't lose faith in yourself. It's too easy to fall into cynicism. It's too easy to fall into nihilism. And we have to fight those temptations every day. And we live in a difficult world and a difficult life, and you're the person for the task that God has put before you. And there is a task before you. There is a purpose. Yes, you're chasing a goal, whether you understand it or not. There's a purpose for your life. There's a purpose for you. You're chasing something. And in the seasons where it feels emptied, in the seasons where you do have nihilism taking over your mind, and seasons where you're cynical, just remember there's a God. I remember that this isn't all there is. There's a future. There's a hope to come, and we must keep our eyes on that, right? He says, um, seek first the kingdom of God and everything else shall be added. Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else shall be added. Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else shall be added. Believe that. Chase that, seek that, follow that. Remember, there's, there's a reason for it. You know, I believe it. Like, there must be. Yeah, there is. There is. It's easy to doubt God. We could be like Job, you know. God, how dare you! Um, or not like Job. We could not be like Job. And God, how dare you! I kind of want to read— I honestly probably should read how my boy Job— um, I've read Job before, but I kind of probably should read it again. Read it again because Job Job responded well. In my opinion, you know, God still had to get on him a little bit. He was like, "Hey boy, who are you?" He said, "Who are you questioning me?" Right? Um, so hold on. Let me share this page with y'all. Let me share this page with y'all. There we go. There we go. Hi. High school. Okay. Okay. I did not even know that you should be able to do this. But yeah, so hold on. The best translation. Let me get y'all the best translation real quick. It's not King James, all right? Translation is NASB. I'm telling you, New American Standard Bible is probably one of the best word-for-word translations you're going to find in the English language. Yeah, his man was blameless, upright, tried and turning away from evil. Wow. But, uh, the foundation of— or yeah, the foundation of wisdom is the Is the fear of why did I just forget the verse? Proverbs, the foundation of wisdom is fear of the Lord. Um, so he was wise. He was a wise man. Now there was a day when the sons of God came before God and also came among. Are we glitching? Okay. Okay. Um, uh, the Lord said to Satan, from where do you come? And Satan answered, from roaring Roaming about on the earth and walking around it, the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God, turning away from evil. Then Satan answered the Lord, does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not seen his house and all that he has, the works of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land? But reach out with your hand now and touch all that he has. He will certainly curse you to your face. Whoa! He didn't say you're going to curse him to your face. Then the Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is in your power. Only do not reach out and put your hand on him. So Satan departed from the presence of the Lord and basically got to work. So he lost everything. See, uh. Okay. To do anything to go care of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the Lord. Despite Job did not sin against God, came along with the presence. You come from where this is, you know, fearing God. Is it because of this? So then, uh, basically saying, says, have you considered my servant? Uh, God said, consider my servant Job. Say, answer the Lord, says, skin for skin, yes, all that a man has he would give for his life. However, reach out with your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, he will curse you to your face. The Lord said, go, he is in your power, only spare his life, right? So now you can— he's only sparing his life, right? All in your power. From the presence of the Lord, do not reach out and put your hand on him. Good. All that he has is in your power. All right, so first he affected all that he has, then he affected him, he attacked his skin. Still, he did not curse against God. Um, anyway, so you should definitely read Job if you are in a season of doubt and struggle, because he kind of shows us the best way to maneuver through that in our life and things of that nature. All right, so now I suppose I'll share my first spoken word piece. Now, this spoken word I shared— the spoken word I shared, um, to my church group first. So I went— okay, anyways, I'm not going to go into an insane amount of detail with that, but, um, Yes, I shared this with my church group, and now I'm going to share with y'all. I'm going to pull it up on my phone just in case I start to forget, because I tend to. Um, on the live here, I have zero views, and I've been going for 18 minutes, but it doesn't matter. I'll post this video later. All right, spoken word poetry by Faith. Follow Christ. All right, I think I still remember, it's just been a while since I performed it. This is Follow Christ. I've realized the only way to follow Christ is to let go of my life, and for many that's too much to ask to— already forgot it. What? Too much to ask. To die of thyself, pick up the cross, and follow the boss—that's a Christian. Now to stand here and say I've never questioned him would be a sin, which is something we knew too well. Asked a friend of mine, "Do you dwell with the Lord?" And for a second they paused, looking for the right answer. But I knew their words were poisonous like cancer. They spoke from the flesh. They said, "Nah, I can do it myself." I looked at them, touched the one's fresh fruit was crushed not too long ago. They spoke of love. That Jesus brought to them from above, but so quickly they withered and faded, forgot about their sins and the one who paid it. Torn on a cross for your sake, took on a burden you could not take. But as soon as you do what's good and don't get rewarded the way you believe you should, it's like Satan grabs you by the hood, leads you through the woods, and tells you, you deserve better. I can give you whatever. I can make that weight on your shoulder light as a feather. You try not to listen, but he's relentless. Knocks on the door until you lose patience, and as soon as you let him in, it's too late. You may think you're strong enough, but there's a reason you're safe through faith. Because by your power alone, if it was by your power, then hell would be 99% of the population's home. For only one passed, and he sits at the right hand of the Father comfortably on his throne. He created all in existence. Who are we to judge our blessings? He created all in existence. Who are we to judge our blessings? No, but let us follow in his steps, for there will be a time. But now is not that time to rest. So yeah, that's my first ever poem. Point. Point. And, well, not my first ever poem, but like first performed poem, I believe. In front of an audience, you're not counting family. And I enjoyed that one. Yes, yes, I did. I think I'll do one more. All right, so now I'm gonna do my freestyle. Freestyle time. Uh, so we need a word generator. Word generator. Um, I kind of want to share my screen. Oh, is it— I got this. Is it Is that, uh, like, look how tiny I become. Wait, I'm gonna kick me over here. Look how tiny I am. I kind of wish you could change, you know, swap the— hello. I wish you could swap the, um The viewing, like, different. I'm saying. You know what we're gonna do? What's happening? Saying right here. Never in my life have I seen this video. How am I supposed to rhyme appendix? All right, so this is my freestyle poetry writing. This— these advertisements are gonna make me crash out. All right, here we go, here we go, here we go, here we go. I'm not rapping, spoken word. So if you're here for a rap, just leave, just leave. Oh my goodness. If these ads keep popping out, you know what we could do? Oh, I'm in G. Put this in the chat. I'm gonna put this in the chat. If I do like a— if I do a video, I'll put the words up. Yeah, we're gonna stop sharing the page. All right, partnership appendix. Atmosphere, closed. I don't even know what to rap about. I mean, not rap, but what about— I feel like freestyle poetry doesn't look as impressive just because it's not fast, but hey, it can still be difficult. And these are some hard words: partnership, appendix, atmosphere, and closed. Oh, sorry. Yeah. We live our whole life trying to find meaning, and sometimes we lose ourselves. We slip off this bridge trying to find someone else to ship ourselves. You see, we don't know what it's like to be in a partnership. We've never held hands with somebody who meant us good. We've always been held back like 3 times the fold. We've been pushed down like we are under a hood. We've been doing our best. Best we could. You see, this isn't going out anywhere. I can't seem to rhyme a fair and a hair. Do you not see? This is my lair. This is my realm. Poetry. It's a mastercraft of mastery. What you're seeing is a linguistic order, a linguistic artist try to Treat this like somebody's bee. Okay, we're gonna stop, start over. Oh, that was so bad. Oh, I'm so glad this has zero views. Oh, okay. Partnership. Sometimes we try to find our way through life, but we end up slipping because we have no one's hand. Like a husband with no wife, we don't have partnership. You see, we need to learn to shift our hearts to other people so they may treat us like we're equal instead of trying to do it on our own. It's like it's going to burst if we keep doing this, trying to make our own fix. Do you not understand? You keep trying to fix something broken and exposed like an appendix. Appendix. It's like it twists and pulls, and then we're stuck in this loop, and we cannot get out of this hole. And we suck into this pole. Lo, lo and behold, we find ourselves in situations we don't need to be in. Can't you see? The reason we're stuck in this sphere is because we forgot to look up beyond the atmosphere. See, we didn't look for God. We looked for what rise— what, what was right here, and that's what caused all this fear. Can't you see it? Broken children, broken families. That's why you see these tears, because brokenness continues to fulfill when we forget to look uphill. We're stuck, closed in, closed. We need to dress ourselves with clothes like Adam and Eve. We know we're unclothed, and now we feel grief. We feel Shame and this pain. This pain continues to maim our growth. Okay, that's enough. Um, there's a few things I want to do. A few things I want to do. Um, a few things I'm gonna do. Uh, hold on. A few things. Uh, first First thing we need to figure out is what the frick does main mean? I'm like 90% sure it means something. It means something, right? I swear I know what I'm talking about. I was thinking about main. What was I thinking about? Amputate? What am I thinking about? Search Google for amputate. Oh wait, maybe I need to see this. This is me searching. No, this is me searching for synonyms. So no. This one, the main one's a word. All right, this is embarrassing. Let's just move on. Honestly, I'm probably better with like— News? Um, yeah, yeah. Okay, back to what we're doing. Freestyle, freestyle, freestyle Sunday. Okay, so now I guess I'll talk a little bit about my poems. That are unfinished. I bet I'll get like three times as many views if I went live on my phone. Hold on. Watch, and.
