The Worship Experiment: Take 2

I began writing blog entry entitled "Take 1" on Saturday, March 3, 2012 and decided I would continue it later, but I chose to start a new entry today on Sunday, March 4, 2012. Today, as I am worshipping in choir at WPC, Paulo speaks a word and he says he doesn’t know who it was for...but he continued and his words were exactly for me. I didn’t know that I was walking with condemnation, but I knew I wasn’t walking in freedom. So when he said “there is a difference between conviction and condemnation”, I knew the word was for me because it wasn’t like other words I’ve heard about condemnation, but he explained to the core how I have been feeling and I experienced so much freedom through the power of God that morning. Pastor Mark’s teaching about feeling overwhelmed and choosing to come to Jesus with our burdens for rest..........ahhh I  can’t even explain it, I just want to experience all over again.

I am excited about this journey with my mates because I have already gained so much understanding of my purpose and am motivated to learn and develop myself as a minister of God. What I have gained so far is the following:

1.  The best teacher and co-labourers in this journey (haha I had to say it);
2. I have begun to think of music differently as I am listening to it. I listen for different elements in the song and try to understand what the artist is feeling or trying to achieve;
3. I have bought more music of artists I just heard about to broaden my musical awareness;
4. My personal worship time has allowed God to remind me about who I am, something He kind of wasn’t able to do because I wasn’t drawing near to Him J
5.  I feel free and pumped and ready for the journey;
6. I am able to see direction in my current career now that I have let go of my burdens;
7. I feel like now I have permission to speak out, whereas I didn’t feel that way before. I knew I had authority in me, just didn’t give myself permission to use it;
8.  I am learning boundaries which is something huge to me;
9.  Most of all, I have a clear vision of the love that surrounds me. I used to think people were bothering me...but I don’t see it that way anymore. I was bothering myself by thinking like a fool.

So here’s to a year full of experimenting, learning, leaning, taking risks and challenges, talking to more people I don’t know, talking to more people about things no one wants to talk about, and seek out the truth in Jesus according to God’s word.

The Worship Experiment: Take 1

Over the last 5 years or so of my Christian journey, I have observed many other believers around me and have had some great teaching and learning experiences about who God is and what my role is as a follower of Christ. I can honestly say that over that time, I was desperately trying to figure out how to please God through my actions. I felt as though I knew God pretty well because I had the conviction of seeing things through God’s eyes, as I am a born again believer. As my desperation in actions grew stronger and my desire to seek Jesus grew deeper, I got very tired. I felt as though over time, rather than developing more understanding of my freedom in Christ, I successfully put a barrier between myself and God. Not by sin, but by not being intimate with God.

I had my moments where I would learn from the Word of God, and had my moments where God would speak to me in a dream or through other people. Still, I always desperately tried to understand scripture on my own or through my own experiences, and tried to follow God’s voice on a best-guess basis. This means I would feel a certain way about a situation or something I prayed about and I would go about whatever it was that I felt according to my understanding. Not that I would say that my feelings should be avoided when making a decision, but I realized that my understanding was lacking, and it was lacking a lot. I want to gain understanding, but I know now that I mustn’t lean on my own understanding. I have to be able to totally depend on God in ALL circumstances.

I don’t want to be the person who desperately wants to be a warrior for God but does not yield to the process of becoming one. I am tired of being in the presence of God at all times and rarely feeling motivated to give thanks and to fellowship intimately with Him. I came to the realization in the fall 2011 that I do not have a deep understanding of who God is and that I do not have a deep understanding of how great His love is for me. The realization did not surprise me, as this is just a part of my journey. I did however recognize its perfect timing and could not be more ecstatic about the fact that God has orchestrated every single detail of my life to where it is now so that I would have the maximum benefit out of this journey to intimacy with Him.

Let’s see what God did in 2011 to force me to want to be intimate with Him ;)

1.       He took me out of a job I felt unsupported in and placed me into a job where I have been developing meaningful friendships with people and am actually learning how to do my job. The location of my job is downtown where I was more than open to moving to because the location of my former job was far from other departments and it felt very lonely all the time.

2.       Knowing that I was going to eventually lose the closeness in accessibility to my mother and my best friend/sister due to marriage in both of their lives, I had to move into my own dwelling place. This was genius God-timing because as I was looking for my place, my mom gets engaged and 3 days after my move date my sister officially moves to the USA. I chose to live alone because I felt I needed to develop my dependency on God.

3.       Closer to the end of the year, I felt I really hadn’t bathed in the word of God in my journey and didn’t make it a priority of my life. Because I felt I was distant from God, I began to seek Him out through more spiritual disciplines and reading.

I won’t go into the details of my experiences where God showed me boundaries in my relationships with others, but essentially that’s what God began doing and very quickly too. He did it and continues to do it with the most amazing love ever. He is a faithful and gentle God.

So at the end of 2011, Paulo (my friend and mentor) advises about this small group that would begin in the new year of 2012 for worship leaders and I pretty much leap for joy in my spirit because the timing was so great and perfect. At a time where I longed desperately to know God more intimately and learn more about my purpose in ministry, he calls a small group together and opens his home to a time of sharing experiences but most importantly to develop on the foundation of a follower of Christ and grow in our ministry as worship leaders.

I have learned first of all how honoured and loved I am to even be a part of something like this. Another thing I still can’t get over is how great God is that He would place me in a wonderful group at such a time as this J