Believe it or not, there are times when I don't feel like worshipping God. Everything we do is an act of worship to the King, or at least its supposed to be. But there are times when I've had a bad day and I don't feel like getting on stage and playing/singing or lifting praises to God. I know how awful this probably sounds right now. Here is a worship leader saying that its a struggle some days to do what God has created us for, what she has been called to do. But the truth is that I'm a sinner just like you. And when I don't feel like worshipping, its usually because I've let my guard down and Satan has gotten into my head.
I know you're probably thinking "why is she telling us this?". Well the honest truth is, because its my blog and I can write about whatever I want. And right now I want to write about my struggles with this. But also I'm writing about it so that you can see that worship leaders aren't extraordinary. We face the same problems that everyone else does, maybe even more because we are "in the spotlight". Satan likes to take every weakness and use it against you, pride, envy, jealousy, even self pity.
Well, I have quite a few short-comings, but what got me this time was feeling inadequate and pride. I'm not that great of a musician. I'm okay, but I could be better. So when I get a difficult song, that I just can't seem to get, thats when Satan starts working on me. I start to feel lousy about my playing, about my practicing habits, about myself in general and basically beat myself up about every little thing. When I'm frustrated and down on myself and generally in a bad mood I can be very negative and just plain ugly. When I get like this I have to remind myself that even when I don't feel like worship it doesn't matter because its not about me, its about God. It's about giving Him the glory, even in the bad times, even when it feels like nothing good could happen.
In one of my studies this week I was reading an article/sermon ( "The Authentic Worshiper") by Jeff Deyo (Sonicflood). He had some great verses in there. But what hit me was a statement he made about worship. He said "One of God's favorite times for you to worship is when you don't feel like it." Wow! Because its SO true! God doesn't ask us to worship Him only when we "feel" like it. No, He demands our worship in all things. We are to worship him not only when things are good, and fun, and easy, but also when things are dark, and sad, and we feel defeated. It's easy for worship leaders to make it about the "show" and not be authentic in their worship. But you can ask any one of us and we will tell you, its not about the show. It's about being authentic in your worship, and sometimes that means worshipping through the pain, or sorrow you might be feeling.
So now you might be thinking how does pride play into all this? Well before all of this mess, I was struggling with my pride. Struggling with where I fit into things, why I wasn't doing some things I was so sure I was supposed to do. Well the easy answer to that is that I let my pride get in the way. And that started me on a downward spiral where Satan took my prideful nature and used it against me by turning my pride into self pity, into inadequacy. See how that works? If you're not careful, the little things are what will trip you up and make you fall.
But the best ways to stay out of Satan's traps is to stay in God's word, pray, pray, pray, have people in your life who you trust to keep you accountable, and to be honest with them about the things going on in your life so that they can call you out when you're being stupid. I continually have to lay myself down before God and say that I've messed up and give Him my pride and control over my circumstances (because I soooo wanna be in control!). And there will be good days and bad days. But its a choice I have to make to praise Him and worship Him in good times and bad times.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 "give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
Job 2:10 "But he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Should we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips."
Finally, my song for the week. It's very unlike me, but its good.
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