CAIN on How to Balance Pressure and Stay True to Your Faith
In their journey as musicians, the sibling trio CAIN—Taylor, Logan, and Madison Cain—shared with us how they have wrestled with the tension between the pressure to produce and the desire to stay true to their faith.
One of the biggest challenges they’ve faced—the overwhelming pressure to create something exceptional on a deadline. Taylor recalled, “We wrote 100 songs to pick ten for our first album. Now we’re about to release our second album, and we had five days in the studio, and we didn’t have the songs. We had five writes booked, and the pressure of, ‘These songs need to be good, or we won’t have the album.’”
Such pressure can be suffocating. “It’s hard to be creative and be you when there’s so much pressure on it. That pressure—it kills your creativity,” Taylor admitted.
In those moments, Taylor realized they were relying too much on their own strength. “Sometimes you just get lost in, ‘I’ve got to mass-produce,’ and you start putting all this pressure on yourself,” she said. But that pressure ultimately led to a breakthrough—not just in their music, but in their faith.
As they dealt with the pressure to produce, CAIN came to understand songs are not something to be forced. “We always say yes to God and give Him the time, asking, ‘Will You give us something that we can sing to You or help others with?’” Taylor explained. The band has learned they cannot control when or how inspiration comes.
“Songs are a gift… you can set time aside, but you can’t push them out. God is the creator, and He has to give it to you,” Taylor continued. This revelation shifted the way they approached songwriting. It became less about their ability to create and more about making space for God to move through them.
By surrendering the outcome to God, CAIN found themselves less stressed about success and more focused on simply abiding in His presence, trusting that He would provide the right inspiration at the right time.
Simply being in God’s presence is enough.
Creative Freedom Through Abiding
Logan echoed, “Abiding in Him is the discipline of doing everything as unto the glory of the Lord. That’s the focus—you’re not chasing after hits or success; you’re simply showing up and giving God your time and attention. But even then, you have to go in with clean hands and an open heart, saying, ‘Lord, if we don’t get the summer smash, we don’t get the hit. That’s okay.’ If this song turns into nothing more than time together and time with You, we have to be okay with that. We’re doing this for Your glory, not for us.”
This focus allowed CAIN to experience true creative freedom. Rather than chasing the world’s idea of success, they realized that simply being in God’s presence was enough. “The last shall be first,” Logan continued. “That’s where the most powerful creativity comes from—understanding that the world’s pressure isn’t what we should be chasing. God’s timing and presence are what matter.”
Pressure Chokes Creativity
Logan went on to explain how the pressure to perform often stifles the very creativity it’s meant to inspire. “The world will tell you that pressure makes diamonds, that it’s going to make you perform better. But what I’ve found is that pressure is such a choke hold on the creativity of godly things—of Christian art. When you feel that pressure to create a hit, to impress others, it suffocates the process. You’re not pulling from the Source, which is God; you’re just manufacturing something. If your heart was never connected to the song in the first place, of course it’s going to flop. You didn’t pull it from the Source—you just made words rhyme. Creativity has to come from abiding in God, not from pressure.”
True inspiration comes from a connection with God.
As CAIN embraced this truth, they found their creativity flowed naturally, without the burden of pressure.
CAIN learned a significant lesson about surrendering their creative process to God from Sheila Walsh, a Christian speaker who shared her pre-speaking routine with the band. Logan explained, “She said what she prays before she goes to speak is, ‘After You, Lord.’ She said she turns and gestures to God, saying, ‘After You.’ I’ve carried that with me ever since, because it works in every context—whether you’re writing a song, performing on stage, or just living your daily life.”
For Logan, this practice—surrendering everything to God with the simple phrase “After You”—has helped him release the pressure to perform. “It’s such a freeing feeling because it takes away the pressure to be perfect or to perform. You just gesture to the Lord and say, ‘After You,’ and you know you’re in the right place. It puts everything into perspective.”
This simple act of surrender, Logan explained, has made a huge difference in how the band approaches their work and their lives. It’s a reminder that success doesn’t come from their own efforts, but from walking in step with God.
In Step with God
For CAIN, the journey of creating music is about far more than writing hits or meeting expectations. It’s about abiding in God, trusting His timing, and releasing the pressure to perform. As Logan put it, “We can’t manufacture this. Creativity doesn’t come from us—it comes from abiding in Him. And when we abide, the pressure fades, and we can just be in His presence.”
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the pressure to perform, let CAIN’s story inspire you to abide in God, let go of the need for control, and trust that He will guide you in every step of your journey.
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