I LOVE to sing.
Worship music has long been the one thing that can lift my mood and bring me to the feet of Jesus. I LOVE singing praise songs. I haven’t honestly even heard a secular station in years. Doesn’t do anything for me….so I listen instead to songs that have an uplifting message…good in, good out right?
I wish I had taken voice lessons when I was younger and had learned how to use my voice better. I sing well, I think God has given me a good voice but it is no Natalie Grant! Within the last year I have become involved with our church’s worship team.
I love singing, love the practices, love seeing the people in the church praising God. It terrifies me every week I am on stage, but I do it because I love it. I don’t believe for a second that I am “better” than anyone else when I am up there…I am just using the gift God gave me to help lead worship.
But I have struggled with this a little.
I used to believe that I needed to have my life all together before I had the “right” to be up there singing. I wanted to be involved but I knew that I was a failure, a hypocrite and a sinner and God calls the perfect right?
At least that is what the enemy likes to whisper to me….and for a long time I believed it.
And one day someone (so sorry I can’t remember who…) said the following and it stuck with me.
God doesn’t call the perfect – He perfects the called.
Oh such sweet music to this broken girl’s heart.
I don’t have to have it all together. I probably never will. And I can guarantee that I have a LOT of growing and refining to do. But knowing that God has called me to a specific purpose, and knowing that He will equip me along the way is enough for me right now.
It gives me the courage to say “yes” to being a part of something that is for His glory and not my own.
Today in our fall Hello Mornings challenge we were introduced to Paul – or at the time Saul.
Acts 9: 1-9 “But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. 4 And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him,“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.”
It was another reminder that God calls the broken, the angry, the sinner….
He called Saul – called Him by name. A man who was set on murdering the disciples. He used a man like that! Why in the world wouldn’t He use you and I?
I don’t know what your past looks like. What demons may be hiding in the shadows trying to tell you that you will never be enough.
You know what…maybe you won’t be “enough” but you don’t have to be!! God is enough for each of us and it is through Him and by Him that we are redeemed. God uses the redeemed. And that is you!
Don’t ever forget how valuable you are to God….how He has called you by name, broken and beautiful you!
