With guitar in hand, I show up to each country expected to play. With guitar in hand, I’m the “musician.” In the past five months, I’ve learned how to use my guitar as a tool for ministry. In the past five months, I’ve also learned how my guitar can hold me back from an authentic relationship with God.
For years now, music has become my identity of sorts; whether it was directing an A Capella group or leading worship at church, I found identity, affirmation and pride in the gift of music I’ve been given. And for the first few months of the Race, I leaned into this identity God had supposedly given me (or so I thought). I led my squad in worship, I taught other teammates how to play guitar and would whip out my guitar whenever I wanted affirmation; whenever I wanted to please other people. And I walked around with this naïve mindset for quite a while: it wasn’t until a night leading worship in Lesotho that I was quickly brought back down to Earth.
After leading the group in four or so songs, having hit notes that echoed perfectly in the room, saying prayers that hit home and letting the songs create a “worship experience”, the session ended and everybody left. Nobody came up to me to thank me for leading; nobody told me how good I sounded! And for a minute, I was hurt.
The next minute, I was brought to a harsh reality of what worship had become to me.
Worship had become a performance; an opportunity to show people my gifts and in turn receive affirmation from them. But this night, God tested me: without the affirmation, without approval from others, does your worship still matter? Are you even worshiping for Me anymore?
This was one of the most difficult and honest truths I’ve faced in a while and I had to face the fact that I was no longer worshiping for God; I was worshiping for others and I was worshiping for myself. In trying so hard to push into the identity I created for myself, I was pushing God out of the process.
I’d been spending so much time singing, sharing Bible verses emphasizing the heart of worship:
Shout for the joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing. – Psalm 98:4
“It’s your breath in our lungs so we pour out our Praise”
The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in His love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. – Zephaniah 3:17
Yet in striving so desperately to create this perfect “worship experience” these words lost all their meaning in my own life. I wasn’t pouring out my praise, I wasn’t bursting into jubilant song with music; I was carefully choosing every word, every note, every chord to create a performance. And it wasn’t filling me up but draining me; it wasn’t delighting God but left Him yearning for my heart.
Thankfully upon showing me this realization, God was ready to walk me through the truth.
Despite my doubts, God didn’t want me to stop playing for other people entirely. He simply wanted me to play for Him above anybody else. As He walks me through what that looks like, I have discovered a freedom in worship that I never thought possible!
He challenged me to worship every day for Him – to find a place where nobody but Him could hear me and simply pour my heart out to Him. He presented opportunities to worship where I didn’t have time to prepare a performance but simply had to rely on Him. Much to my surprise (not to His), these new opportunities to worship created some of the most powerful worship experiences I’ve facilitated – not because I sounded my best or said the right words, the right prayers, but because there was room for the Holy Spirit; it was worship led not by me but by the Lord.
As we leave Swaziland, I am more confident in using music as ministry than ever before. It’s not because I play guitar well, have the best voice or have memorized all the lyrics – it’s because I’ve learned how to surrender all of those variables I thought were so important before. Worship through music is how I respond to God’s love and how I most clearly hear His voice. And to see Him use our intimate relationship to create a worship experience for others has become such an exciting way to partner with Him.
In surrendering my identity in music, God has more clearly shown me my true identity in Him. And THAT is a truth that deserves all of my praise.
