When I arrived at Thirst tonight, I did not want to lead worship. It has been an extremely overwhelming week (trying to adjust to teaching elementary music AND middle school GT), and by the end of the day I feel drained and exhausted. My energy and my confidence in my guitar playing and singing only decreased as we rehearsed. The songs “all sounded the same”–they were all in the same key with almost the same chord progression, “a poor choice of songs” (which I picked). I am not one of those amazing guitar players who can make each song sound unique by using variances of chords. When Paul came on stage to help me, I just about gave up, and in my heart I decided that this was the last time I would agree to lead worship. I’m just not good enough.
The funny thing is, God likes to teach us through circumstances like these. My voice was about shot from singing and teaching all week, and I was just hoping it would hold out long enough to get through the 5 songs we were singing. As Thirst started I noticed that our numbers seemed smaller than usual. There was so much empty space around the tables and chairs. But when we started singing, I was blown away by the worship. I don’t even think I could describe it. Once we started the songs, everyone was singing so loudly I didn’t even really have to sing! It was seriously like a wall of worship hitting me in the face, and it brought me to tears and humbled my heart in worship to God, who through His power can change hearts and accomplish the “impossible.”
One of the first things Dan said tonight in his message on Ephesians 3:7-13 was, “God does not use the kind of people we expect to fulfill His plan.” That is definitely how I felt tonight. I wanted someone else to lead–someone who has a stronger singing voice than I have, someone who can play guitar better than I can…but God wanted to use ME tonight to fulfill His plan and bring Him glory through worship.