Interactions with God #50
I used to be really envious of worship leaders, used of God the way they are. Standing up there, week after week, pouring out the power of God. However, worship leading is not my calling…no not at all. “Oh, but you should pray to God and ask for the gift.” I have heard that. “No” I replied to them, “God went out of His way to show me that worship leading was not, nor would it ever be, my calling”. Responding with a perplexed look, I then told them of this next Interaction.
Martha was a church secretary. I was a clerk in a bank. Making money, was not our mutant power. I really wanted to learn how to play a guitar so I could do worship, or even just to be part of the team. Unfortunately, there was no way I could afford a decent guitar. So, I looked in pawn shops for used guitars, but even they were all still out of my price range.
I had mentioned my interest once before to a guy at church, named Brian. Not too long after, Brian was approached by a friend of his, who had a really nice Ibanez 6-string acoustic guitar. Brian’s friend realized it was sitting, unused, collecting dust. He wanted to know if Brian knew anyone who could use it for a while to serve God. Because of my interest, Brian thought of me.
Brian’s friend gave me the guitar, not to own, but to learn on and use. I was thrilled. This guitar was well over $500 worth of musical wonderful! I gladly accepted the guitar and played with it for days. I did learn quite a few cords and several worship songs. Most of those old songs really weren’t hard to play, well, if you have any sort of talent…which I did not.
I really did my best with it. I got to where I knew the chord progressions, but I could not get my switching to sound right at all. Don’t even get me started on my singing. Not only was it bad, but I just couldn’t do it at the same time as I played. It’s not like chewing gum and walking at all. Either way, I kept at it for months. I did even get to lead worship at our home group meetings several times. I think I eventually stopped out of mercy for those in the group.
After a year passed, I found myself sitting on the couch, talking to God. In the middle of my discussion with Him, I noticed the guitar in the corner. It was collecting dust. I realized that I was not going to be a worship leader. I was never going to play the guitar. It just wasn’t a gift of mine. In my heart, at that very moment, I let the dream go. So I spoke to Him out loud, “Lord, thank you for letting me borrow the guitar. I really appreciate that I didn’t have to buy one to find out that I would never lead worship.”
The next day. Yes, the very next day. Brian came up to me at a Wednesday night service and said, “Hey, my friend wants his guitar back.”
God, let me have the guitar, at no cost, for an entire year, just so I would gently give up on a dream that wasn’t going to be. Now, I don’t know about you, but I thought that was really, really cool.
Years later, I explained that “going off” feeling, that I got while I was teaching, to another worship leader named Chris Dark. He told me that what I explained was exactly the same thing that happens when he leads worship. So, the very reason I wanted to do the worship thing, flowing with power of God, I was already doing. Empowered by the Spirit of God, touching the hearts of His people, with words instead of music. Yes, that would do. That would do indeed.