The story I’m about to tell doesn’t involve miracles, healings, or Jesus changing the lives of the lost. Nope, that blog ‘ll come later. This blog is about how God used an ordinary experience to teach me (yet again) about boldness and stepping out.
old school.
If you knew me way back when, you’d know that I used to play piano. Key words: used to. When I was about 6 or 7, I started playing piano, and I played til I was a junior in high school. But then I walked away. Completely. Music was something I loved, but it became something I dreaded. I hated being told what to play, how to play, when to play, everything. In case you don’t know me, when it comes to music, and pretty much everything else in life, I like to do it my own way. I grew to begrudge piano because for years, I had to “stay in the box” so to speak (you know, like read music, standard things like that). So I gave it all up. The years of lessons, practicing, competitions, everything. And the sad part was, I never looked back. Playing piano had been this beautiful, creative, individual piece of myself that I loved, and yet it had become a boring, stagnant pastime that I then resented.
new school.
Back to the story, I stopped playing piano and music in general my junior year. Until the race, I had touched a piano maybe a dozen times since then, if that. Crazily (is that a word?) enough, I felt like God was telling me to purchase a guitar on the race. After I bought my guitar and started playing it (with playing being more of a relative term), God started to rekindle my love for music.
cool school.
Back to current day events, my team and I attended church this past Sunday. Attended is sort of a loose term on the race, meaning we led worship and shared four testimonies; led the service is more of an accurate description. Anyways, we get to a small church in the middle of nowhere Thailand, and the church had a keyboard. While we are in the process of walking up to the front to lead worship, the pastor asks if any of us can play piano. When this question was asked in previous months on the race, I would either pretend I didn’t know how to play, or wait until someone else answered. This time was different. I said yes. We went to the front of the church, and I attempted to play the worship songs from the guitar cords. Imagine attempting to play an instrument you haven’t really played in years, while in front of people, while trying to play accompaniment. Let’s just say it wasn’t my finest musical performance.
lessons in school.
The biggest lesson I learned from this whole experience is about boldness. Before coming on the race, I would have seen that scenario of playing less than well at the church as a failure. On the contrary, God showed me that it was a time of me stepping out of my fears, a chance to experience more of Him. It isn’t God’s desire for me to live in fear, for me to worry about what others will think, or that I even stay in my comfort zone. His desire is this: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” God came to give us life, and abundant life at that. Are you willing to step out into it?
