Last fall I asked my pastor, who’s musical, for a drum
lessons. I had no idea if I would be any good at it. He started by playing
music on guitar and asked me to jump in when I got the rhythm. I had it with in the first half bar. That’s
quick. Apparently I have a natural
rhythm.
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I have been asked to play the drums for our worship this
week. My fear set in, up in front of
everyone. What if I make a mistake? My pastor said about 90% of the mistakes
worship people make the congregation doesn’t notice. Then I thought if they are
concentrating on the perfectionism of the music are they worshiping? If I let
my fear take hold not only will I make more mistakes but I won’t enjoy the
playing. Also I won’t be trusting God. Exodus
23:27 ‘I will send my terror (fear)
ahead of you and throw into confusion all the people, (fears, insecurities, false thoughts) among whom you come and I will
make all your enemies turn their backs to you.’ God goes before us in all
situations and my enemy is Satan putting the fear in me. (In brackets my addition.)
Last week God dropped into my heart all the things I have
learned and grown in since he started to heal me and took me out of the prison
I was in. Every time I started a new adventure I was afraid. Now I look back and wonder what my fear was
about, nothing but false expectations appearing real.
Why are we so afraid? My fear stems from the people who
influenced me in a negative way either by being afraid themselves; being critical
of what I did or telling me something bad would happen to me if I did that. Those are voices from my past.
One of those fears was when I first got on the back of my
husbands motorcycle to go to town to have lunch a thought popped into my mind,
what if I get killed on this. God spoke loud and clear, ‘That’s your mothers voice,
don’t listen to it.’ Since that time we
have taken several trips on the motorcycle and seen Canada
from Newfoundland to British
Columbia and the USA
down to Virginia, Kentucky
and South Dakota.
I am enjoying it. If I let fear rule me we wouldn’t of had those trips in a
unique way and we’ve met many people whom we wouldn’t have in a car.
Fear cripples us. It keeps us locked in a prison of where we
are. It prevents us from really enjoying life and doing as God has called us to
do. It becomes our comfortable place.
Personally sometimes I’d like to be back in that comfortable place. But
is the place really comfortable or just familiar? I did not have as much fun
back then. I also could not bless people
with the gifts God has given me.
Fear is our false perceptions of what might happen, not will
happen. We can allow our fear to make these false expectations real in our
minds.
One day I will look back at playing on the worship and
wonder why I was afraid to start. Ezra
3:3 'Even though they were afraid of what
their non-Israelite neighbors might do, they went ahead anyway and set up the
alter on its foundations and offered whole burnt offerings on it, morning and
evening.'
I pray that we will not allow fear to control us. That we
will do the will of God for His kingdom, no matter were it takes us.
9:46 AM |
Category: |
10
comments
Comments (10)
Such a great post. Thank you for sharing!
Wonderful post-you got me right away-I'm trying to learn the bass guitar so I can one day play in our worship team. I know too, all about the fear thing and what a loud voice it is....thanks for such a great post!
Joyce - This is such an inspirational message.
My fears in the past have kept me down - trusting in our Lord is uplifting.
♥♥♥
Sue
How funny is it thatlast night I listened to an Andy Stanley sermon about fear?
If it's any encouragement, I've served on my church's worship team for going on 14 years and we all make mistakes! You just brush it off and keep going. This past Sunday, our leader's guitar string broke in the middle of a song and the sopranos came in at the wrong time. I had to do the welcome and I said "ass" instead of "ask". =p I don't think we've ever had a perfect Sunday, even though the intent of doing our best for God is there. Most congregation members don't notice the flubs and it's not for them anyway.
Thank you for all your comments and the encouragement from Charmed.
Thank you for this encouraging post! Indeed if God is for us, who can be against us?
That is something I have to surrender my fears to the Lord.
Ahh, sadly I can't tell you how many times I have let fear rule my life. Thank you for your encouraging words and sharing your personal story.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts in this post.
I did the worship on Sunday and all went well. Made a few mistakes, one large one but got back on track. I also had lots of encouragement from the congregation.