Disobedience. It’s a trap I’ve been walking in for most of my life. It all stems from been stuck in fear. I’ve hidden my feelings afraid it was the wrong time to talk about them. I’ve hidden my thoughts afraid someone would tell me they weren’t perfect because somewhere along the way I believed perfectionism was the only way. I’ve hidden my true self because someone or other in my life told me that’s not how a normal girl, a normal girlfriend, a normal student, a normal teacher, a normal Christian should act.
For SO long, fear has dictated everything in my life. When the Lord told me to go talk to that person in Romania who looked like they were having an awful day. When He told me to pray for the lady in Albania with her ankle all bandaged up in rags. When He told me to call that child over in the park to play with for awhile. I didn’t do those things because I was afraid. I was disobedient because I was fearful.
This past week or so, my squad went to Cambodia to meet up with other squads for a conference called The Awakening. We were encouraged to use the gifts the Lord had been giving us and share them with others. My heart has been filled this past month with worship, so I went to the worship tract. I was placed on a team with a whole bunch of people from a different squad and immediately they meshed together and had things all set up. I could have added my own two cents, in fact I should have added my own two cents, that’s what God was asking me to do… but I was afraid my ideas weren’t as good so I didn’t. I left the Awakening with two things:
1. Feelings of frustration with myself for how continually disobedient I am.
2. A song the Lord had given me that I never shared when I felt like I was supposed to.
Fast forward a few days, my squad is all in South Africa now at debrief where we take a few moments to refocus ourselves before moving into the next ministry location. It’s the first night and we can all feel the Spirit calling us one by one to surrender things we were holding too tightly to.
Someone called out surrendering fear and immediately my hand shot up for prayer before my brain could stop it. I was done. I was done letting this ugly, vicious, sneaky spirit take over my life. So I got prayer, and we declared fear to be completely gone.
Funny thing. Even if you aren’t walking in fear anymore, you can still feel afraid. As all my squad mates went up on stage later to declare all that they surrendered to the Lord, I felt the spirit prompting me to do something that scared the living daylights out of me.
Remember that song the Lord gave me at the Awakening? Well, it’s certainly not the first song I’ve written but normally I don’t share the songs I write with anyone. They’re too precious and I don’t want someone to tell me they don’t like it and then have that precious song be ruined for me.
But here we are talking about surrender, and here I am standing in the corner of the room holding the lyrics of a song all about freedom. Old Jenn would have stayed back and walked away from the evening keeping my song a secret and never telling anyone how perfectly my song would have gone with the evening.
But I’m not Old Jenn anymore. I’m not walking in that fear anymore. I’m not being disobedient to the Lord anymore by not sharing my creativity with the world.
So, I walked up trembling from my toes to my nose and stood in front of my whole squad and sang the song the Lord granted me with them.
I’ve gotten pretty used to singing in front of large groups on the Race. Even if I learned the song a few minutes ago, I’ve learned to sing with confidence. I just spent all of last month playing my ukulele in parks and learning new things. But this time was different because it was a song I wrote, not someone else’s.
My voice shook the whole time. My hands were so shaky I couldn’t hold my journal with the lyrics straight. I couldn’t turn my eyes up in case they caught someone else’s. I was so afraid, but I wasn’t walking in FEAR. I was walking in OBEDIENCE.
So it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how I sounded. It didn’t matter what I looked like. The words still got out to the people they were supposed to get out to.
My obedience in sharing the gift the Lord gave me blessed 43ish other people. For the past two days no one can stop singing my song, even if they all get the words totally wrong haha…. SO many people have told me how much my song blessed them and that I need to continue sharing it to bless others.
I don’t write that to boast about myself but to show how all their encouragement was just confirmation that what the Lord gives us is not meant for us to keep. It’s meant for others. What a joy it is to be a vessel of blessing. None of that blessing would be possible if I continue to let fear dictate my life.
So, hey world. My name is Jenn and I walk in the knowledge that everything I have is meant to be a blessing that glorifies Jesus and fear has no place in my life anymore. Yay!
Love ya!
Jenn
p.s. we got to Africa and I don’t know how regularly I’m going to have WiFi anymore for the next 3 months. However, God is about to do something really big through this squad, and I jut can’t wait to tell you all those stories… even if that means it has to wait until I can tell you in person. You’ll hear them eventually, I promise!
p.p.s. Yes I am going to try recording this song so you can hear it as well, but again Africa and no electricity next month… but soon!
