Who am I?

This is an experience that God has just journeyed me through....I have to say what an amazing experience and I owe it all to Him!  I have been saturating myself the past two days in these different songs, each coming to me to listen to at different points in time.  This journey that I have experienced has been building up for quite sometime, and God has me in the place where with my family and friends He has said to me  "You are now ready to face this and give it to me." 

 In order to be a more effective worship leader, this journey was a must.  I pray that as you read this that God will speak to you in your life has He has in mine, and that whatever He wants you to give to Him that you will....

Who am I (By Casting Crowns)

Job 3:24-26  “For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groaning are poured out like water.  For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me.  I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, but trouble comes.”

I started out in my prayer journal and started to write out my first sentence, which I have had to repeatedly write this sentence out for many months.  The first sentence I write states “Lord, you cannot love me more than you do at this very moment in time.”  I have been writing this sentence because I have to constantly remind myself that I am loved just because of who He is, not because of my accomplishments or my drive to be the best I can be.  Growing up as a PK you are primarily driven by your behaviour and your actions, as you are under a microscope being a PK kid.  Also as a PK family you grow up being alone, your parents give so much of their beings to God and to shepherd a church that it consumes their entire being.  I had many friends in my life who were MK’s and they had very similar situations with the exception that most of them went off to school and were physically deserted from their families which they had to deal with as they got older, as a PK your parents are their physically but not emotionally.  Would I change a thing from my childhood, no.  Definitely not!   It is a great sacrifice ministry, huge in so many ways that people who are not in ministry may not know.  But I thank God for the experience and the struggles I have gone through and those struggles do not outway the beauty of growing up in ministry and seeing the changed lives, and seeing God’s will alive and at work.  I would not be who I am today if my life was different.  In light of this as I get very busy in life I tend to drop God.  I start down this self destructive path.

  I wrote this sentence in my journal, Lord you cannot love me more than you do at this very moment in time….then I thought of the line vapour in the wind, and God said to me “You have got to find that song”  So I stopped what I was doing and put on the song Who am I.  I listened to the first line “Who am I that the Lord of all the earth would care to know my name, would care to feel my hurt?  At this point I couldn’t even take in the chorus, second verse came…Who am I that the eyes that see my sin would look on me with love and watch me rise again?  Who am I that the voice that calmed the sea would call out through the rain, and calm the storm in me?  And I was in such a state at that moment that I got so busy in my life that I drained every part of me.  And I honestly felt that I was nothing…that why would God love me, I have deserted him far too long, I went back to that childhood state of  “I must behave, I must do everything right, I must please people to gain acceptance, than I am worthy of love”  I was such a sinner.  Then came the next line “Not because of who I am, but because of what You’ve done, Not because of what I’ve done, but because of who You are”  I finally heard it!  I am a vapour in the wind, still You hear me when I’m calling, Lord, You catch me when I am falling.  And You’ve told me who I am….I am Yours…  How did I get so distracted in my life that I forgot, it is not what I do but it is just because of Him, only because of what He has done and because of who He is.  I am nothing, I have nothing to do with it.  I just need to accept Him, His love…I am His…just because of Him.

Job 39:19 – Did you give the horse his might?  Do you clothe his neck with a mane?  Do you make him leap like the locust?  His majestic snorting is terrifying.  He paws in the valley and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons.  He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; he does not turn back from the sword.  With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground; he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.  When the trumpet sounds, he says ‘aha!’ He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.  Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south?  Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? 

Then I ask myself Who am I?

Empty and Beautiful (by Matt Maher)

2 Cor 12:5b-10  …on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.  Though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth.  But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me.  So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this that it should leave me.  But He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong. 

I realized that no matter who we are and what we have gone through whether it be addictions, or issues of any kind we all have a prison we live in.  I realized that this protective barrier I keep myself surrounded in was my prison.  And in my prison there is this constant battle going on inside me, this battle of not giving it over to God.  Me withholding it from Him, saying No, You cannot have this God, I will not give it up.  Over my lifetime I have realized, I needed to give this to Him long ago.  I have battled this far too long, now I am tired.  I have been the war horse who has battled way too many battles and I have lost each and every time, thinking one day I will win, this protective barrier will work.  I have deceived myself into thinking this.  I always thought “ I can do this on my own, I don’t need anyone or anything”.   Well now I know, I can’t do this on my own, I need God.    This will be my thorn, and I will remember that His grace is sufficient for me, and His power is made perfect in my weakness.  Why do I hide?  Why am I afraid?  Why, because I have put my hope for way too long in humanness and not in God.  I have been hurt, vulnerable and afraid in my life, He is the only one who can heal me that can take my hurts, my vulnerability and my fears and heal them in His perfectness.  He fought the fight in me, He chased me down and finished the race.  I was blind but now I see, Jesus you kept the faith in me. 

None But Jesus(by Brooke Fraser)

I have been reading verses on love, as my desire is that in everything I do, that I do it from love.  But not just any old love, and certainly not human love but God’s love.  In 1 Cor 13:2b it says if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing….I thought this is me!  I may have faith but if I have not love, I AM NOTHING….My desire is to change my focus from stop doing, and behaving trying to do right, and trying to find human acceptance and change to my focus to God’s love.  I was listening to this song and it just once again overwhelmed me…In the quiet, in the stillness I know that You are God.  In the secret of Your presence, I know there I am restored…I thought, here I am trying to restore myself through humans who could not possibly restore me to the spiritual restoration I need that only can come from God.  Boy, have I sinned, putting this type of restoration on the humans around me…how unrealistic, they cannot restore me only God can. God please forgive me for the expectations I have put on others.  Please constantly remind me that this is not their job, it is your deal with me and no one else. Next line states, When You call, I won’t refuse…Out of my busyness how many times have I refused God when He called me.  Then it says Each new day, again I’ll choose.  I have to remember to choose Him, each and everyday….This is a major commitment between myself and Him.  I know that God was calling me to hand over this major issue in my life, and I have refused.  I have said no to Him, and I have been avoiding Him because I know He has called me and asked me for this. 

Second verse says :  In the chaos, in the confusion, I know You’re sovereign still.  In the moment of my weakness, You give me grace to do Your will.  When You call, I won’t delay.  This, my song, through all my days.  God is asking me, give this to me everyday, and don’t delay, and I want this from you for the rest of your life!  Wow!  He is asking me to give to Him my protective shell that I have used my whole life to keep me from all my hurts and disappointments.  I have this outer layer outside of my heart, that I think protects me from hurt, disappointments, chaos in my life.  Does it protect me?  No not at all, that is the funny thing about it, I have convinced myself it does.  All it does is take me away from God.  It takes me away from Him, and that is sin. 

There is no one else for me, None but Jesus, Crucified to set me free.  Now I live to bring Him praise.  I cannot put my expectations or asking for my restoration through humans, There is no one else for me, None but Jesus, Crucified to set me free. 

John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world.

Revelation Song (by Phillips Craig and Dean)

Now I can sing this song and Thank Him for who He is!  I can just worship Him and be reminded of His power, and His sovereignty.  I am free from my chains, from my bondage, from my prison, only through Christ, who sets me free!