Learning Season

Ya'll, I just have to tell you... this is a season of learning for me.

I'm very excited because it's been a while since I've been in this kind of season. I'm also somewhat scared about it because I feel like I'm going to be more responsible for things now. So, I'm taking my time to learn everything. I'm probably not taking ENOUGH time to pray through, sort out, and meditate fully on what I'm learning... but God is pouring into me, and I only hope I can keep up. Any older and wiser people want to comment on what it's like to sit at God's feet and let him pour into you while you're still actually living life and trying to absorb and pour out at the same time? Like that sponge example?

Admittedly, a lot of it is experiential and some of it is reading and practicing. However, we'll see how I handle it. I am giving myself lots of grace, and I'm completely humbled that God would even consider whispering what he has to my heart for his kingdom.

I love His word. I love when I open the Bible (or the YouVersion app...) and I don't expect anything from a passage I've read about a million times, and wham, right in the middle of my prayer, that I'm forcing myself to write out, God is like...

"You need to pray for this. And pray for this. And these people, and this is what I'm going to do on Sunday, and you just need to be obedient and keep learning, and here is this, and guess what you're called to even more than you think, and... and... and..."

I have been given a humbling, HUMBLING opportunity to put into immediate practice, on the platform, what I've been learning about worshiping God. There aren't really words to describe the feeling of absolute emptiness of self that I want to feel because I want God to fill me up completely from my toes to the air that is coming out of my mouth... but it's there.

But here's the thing, the more you put yourself... your voice... your "skillz" out there, or at least the more I do, the more self conscious I get that people are looking at me and thinking about it- whether good or bad- or as I am accustomed to thanks to high school (anyone been there?) "Who is this girl? Why is she up there so much? Why is she even doing that? What's she even wearing? Oh yeah, I could sing that song too..." All of these things, I know, don't matter one single bit...

And then God whispers to me again...

"You just let me work. Surrender to me, and let me work. You keep ministering to me and teaching them what I've taught you."

Thank God.

No really, THANK GOD. I don't have to run press to tell people that I don't really even want to be on the platform... except that God has put me there, and I want to, more than ever, help teach people and show them what it is they can do when they worship God. I want to teach them how... well, I want God to teach them how, I'll just give them the blueprint he's lined up (thank you, Zach Neese for the wording of that).

Like I said, I'm in a state of constant learning when it comes to God and what he wants of me as a worshiper. I'm so excited to be one of the leaders in worship this Sunday, but I feel a very great burden to pray hard about it, and the (demon) of pride that may be found in myself, so that God will be seen and that I won't be a distraction. It's so much better to be worshiping at the foot of God's throne than in my own head. Even now, I realize how very much, too much, I think about my own self when it comes to worship at church. I should just get on my knees and bow low before God right now.

See you later.