what up.
im in texas right now waiting out a hurricane. pretty fire. last saturday my squad and i got up at 5:30am and drove to dequincy, louisiana to be able work with Samaritan’s Purse. throughout the week we aided the people of dequincy by doing hurricane clean up. i can confidently say i am a skilled pole saw user.
throughout the week i had the opportunity to see God work but i’ve also been learning how to listen to God’s voice. specifically, how to listen when God speaks gently. throughout my life i’ve heard God speak and it is so incredibly special every single time. however, over the past month i’ve discovered something about myself. i want God to speak to me, but only when he will completely wreck me in the specific way i want him to wreck me. so this has led me to begin learning how to sit and listen. i had an opportunity to learn this last week when all of the men spread out on the Appalachian Trail and spent 30 hours in solitude alone with God.
i was able to see the effect of learning to listen this week. over the past few weeks my friend, who is also gifted in music, and myself have been wanting to lead a worship session that is upbeat and would lead people to jump and dance. however, two different times when we have wanted to play the opportunity never played out because of plans that we couldn’t change.
then this week i was able to have dinner with my squad mentor Kate and my friends Cole and Marissa. throughout dinner we discussed hearing the voice of God, specifically through dreams and visions. my biggest take away from dinner was that God can speak anytime, but sometimes you must be quiet to hear his voice in something quiet as a gentle breeze. this played along perfectly with what i believe God had been revealing to me the weeks prior.
after dinner God spoke to me. he said that the reason he had not given Cole and i the opportunity to lead the worship set we wanted was because our hearts were not postured well. we were too focused on how great our worship could sound and the impact it could have on our squad rather than being focused on purely praising our King. after he had laid that on my heart i went and shared it with Cole.
what blows my mind is later that night God gave us the opportunity to worship like that. unplanned, unselfish, and fully focused on praising our Heavenly Father.
thank you for all your support!
stay stoked,
Reed
