“Any time I was asked to sing in the recent past, I would
make excuses or cancel because I was too scared. I didn't want to look like a
fool in front of people by either the CD skipping, or forgetting words, or
breaking down and crying. It was all about ME. I was looking for the praise of
others...the acceptance of others...not the praise and acceptance of my
Creator, the One who gave me my voice. It's easy to be caught up in our own
selfishness and self-perception and that was something God was showing me. God
gave me the opportunity to step out and face my fear head on. This time with
Him by my side.”
So last Sunday I took the first step in facing my fear by
singing on the praise team at church. It
had been a long time since I’ve done that.
Afterward I had such joy and perfect peace through what God accomplished
in me to bring me to that point.
Fast forward to this weekend…I thought I was off the hook
with facing this fear for a while, at least until the next praise team
rotation. I was wrong! God had other plans. I had received an email from our music
minister Friday asking if I had a song I could sing as a solo Sunday. The person scheduled (who happened to be one
of my best friends) was out of town and wasn’t able to do it. Initially I was hesitant and didn’t even know
where my accompaniment tracks were. So I
thought I had the answer but when I went to bed I couldn’t stop thinking about
it, God wouldn’t let me. So I got up out
of bed, went to look in a drawer of CD’s and immediately found the song that
was on my mind. It was a song that I’ve
known forever, ever since I was a young girl in church. You see, every Sunday night, our Pastor led
us in singing this song at the close of each service. I can’t think of this song without thinking
of that Pastor and his life of ministry.
So, I emailed my music minister back and told him I’d do it. Here was another opportunity to fully depend
on God. He handed me this opportunity to
serve Him, to worship Him, to bring glory to Him and to use the gifts He has
given me. Who was I to say “No”?
Once again, God ushered me through this scary
situation. He poured on me His perfect
peace. He calmed my soul. He never left my side. When you think of the power that we have as
Christians, how can we fail? How can we
be fearful? The power that raised Christ
from the dead is the same power we have available to us! Think of it.
It’s astonishing!
I am so thankful that God will never give up on me.
“He’s still working on me, to make me what I ought to
be. It took Him just a week to make the
moon and the stars, the sun and the Earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient He must be, He’s still
working on me.” (great song of my youth)
If you’re interested, you can hear the song from yesterday
at this link: http://www.whbc.org/media/audio/2012/Gabbard_20121028HI.mp3
Anxiously awaiting what God has next…
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