Recently a spiritual mentor in my life asked me the question, “What have you been doing to challenge yourself since we’ve been in Costa Rica?” To be honest this question caught me off guard. I grew up with incredibly bad performance anxiety, and doing anything new or scary was incredibly hard for me. Even just a year ago any of the things that I’m doing now—being in a leadership position, having to remember so many details for so many different events, and juggling all of the responsibilities that come with squad leading—would have been incredibly challenging in and of themselves. Not to say that this season hasn’t come with its challenges; I constantly find myself asking Abba for wisdom and the capacity to do more and love more. In general, though, I’ve realized that as I’ve grown in dependence and trust in the Lord, I’m actually very comfortable being challenged in new ways. As a follower of Christ, I never want to be stuck in a space of comfort for too long, because in my experience, comfort doesn’t birth growth. After coming to the realization that I haven’t been pushing myself, I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking of ways to challenge myself and push myself into a space of genuinely being outside of my comfort zone.
The opportunity to really dive into this came in the form of something that I never would have expected it to: leading worship for the squad. Although worship is something that I’m very passionate about, I have always thought that because I don’t have a strong or “pretty” voice, that I don’t have a seat at the table when it comes to leading worship. When the chance to help lead worship was brought up, I immediately got that “Holy Spirit heartbeat” that was confirmation that this was my opportunity to challenge myself in a new way.
Going into it I was extremely nervous, but God kept reminding me that worship isn’t meant to be perfect or well-polished. Worship is about your heart posture: what it looks like to worship in spirit and truth, to give Him your undivided attention, and how available you are for the Spirit to move in and through you. When I didn’t hit the right note, forgot a lyric, or messed up the tempo, I was able to smile and laugh because I knew that the Lord was proud of me for doing something that I was uncomfortable with for His sake.
I say all of this to encourage us as the church: the Body of Christ is filled with all kinds of gifts and talents. Don’t look at someone else and wish you were gifted in the same way that they are. If everyone was a gifted teacher there would be no one to lead worship. If everyone was gifted in intercession there would be no one to give words of encouragement. But just because you aren’t specifically gifted in something, does not disqualify you from participating in or even leading in that area. The Kingdom of God takes everyone, and we are not called to stay in one place and jump into outreach when we feel like it. Peter definitely wasn’t comfortable taking the step of faith to walk on water, and he even lost sight of Jesus and “failed”. BUT even so he was called the rock on which Jesus would build his church. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about being willing. So ask the Lord to challenge you. Ask other people to challenge you. Step out. Do the thing. There’s so much freedom on the other side of fear.
