Black Excellence: The Survival And Success Story Of Travis Greene After Beating Death Twice To Become A Global Music Star

Described as the “future of gospel music”, Travis Greene, an American gospel musician and pastor, is known for his hits “Intentional” and “Made A Way.” Starting his music recording in 2007, his music has charted on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums and the Top Gospel Songs charts and he has been nominated for multiple awards, including five Grammy Awards. He was nominated for awards at the 2017 Stellar Gospel Music Awards and won in seven key categories.

But behind his amazing career and life are real-life survival stories that prove nothing is impossible. It began from the very day he was born. “When I was born – on the spot, my mother said that I wasn’t breathing. My skin color was purple, and doctors immediately said that I was stillborn. My mother and father just started praying and believing God, and He performed a miracle,” he said during an interview with Jet Magazine.

Then at age four, he had an accident that changed his life. Greene said he fell from a four-story building out of the window of a house his family was living in while in Germany.

Doctors pronounced him dead on the spot. “They [rescue team] got to my body and they covered me with white shirt. They said it was over (again) and the doctors pronounced me dead.”

“But, then my mother came, she picked up my lifeless body and prayed to God to give me my life. He did it,” Greene recalled. The singer said his mom called on the name of Jesus twice but nothing happened until the third time when she screamed “the blood of Jesus”.

Some days after the incident, Greene told his mom that he remembers falling from the window but a big hand caught him.

“I said mom I remember falling, but I never hit the ground. Right before I hit the ground, a man with a big hand caught me but I couldn’t see his face. I heard a voice and he said do you want to go with your mama. He said I should come to him and I looked at him and said I want my mom. He said okay, this time you are going but next time, you will come with me and I looked up… I asked what his name was.

“He looked back and said, ‘Son, my name is Jesus’,” Greene recalled in a powerful testimony.

After over three decades of his brush with death, Greene has become a renown music star touring the world. The singer attributes his love of music and his desire to go into the gospel to his mother, who served as a choir director. His faith was also instrumental in his music, he said. “I would say it was probably more of the tragedies that I faced that got me into music,” Greene said.

“When I was 5-years-old, my father died of an aneurism. He was 28. And music to me was an answer, it was an alternative to whatever the streets had to offer. So at an early age, I never really got involved in violence or with drugs or any of that stuff.”

The singer and songwriter, who recently received criticism for his decision to perform at President Donald Trump’s inaugural ball, said he has learned to find his identity in Christ alone. “God really had to deliver me from finding value in things, affirmation, pleasing people, and even with being impressed with people or wanting them to be impressed with me. He really extracted that from me, and then launched me to this level of success.”

“I don’t crave the stage in order to feel like I’m important, and I don’t anxiously crave an award, or anything like that. Now I’m able to really categorize all of those things in its proper place and prioritize which is more important–that’s God and family. Everything else is just secondary to that.”