Okay it's share time from my side: I was scheduled to do worship intersession last night. On the one hand it was great news because I really need practise in following the Spirit. On the other hand it was nerve racking... well because I REALLY need practise in following the Spirit. I like doing things by the book with a set of rules to keep me safe. In free worship you kind of need to throw the rule book away and be sensitive to where the Holy Spirit takes you...
Anyway so I was stressing... Not my calm, chirpy self. When I feel like this I usually pray and plead God to help me feel better so that I can worship better. Well this time God showed me that my feelings are kinda insignificant. So what if I'm nervous - it's all about Him. If nerves makes me more alert to the Spirit then chewing my nails off is a good past time.
So with that in mind I was off the church an hour early so that we could practise. So I got the keys and went to put the alarm off. This will be the first time I do this alone. Now I know the keypad is a few metres down the corridor and I have to push the buttons with force to get it to work. So, I thought I was well prepared with cell phone in my hand, checking the code, knowing where the light switch is....
I opened up and the thing started beeping. I ran to the keypad (it's involuntary, the beeping sounds makes you feel as if a bomb will be going off any moment) and punched in the code, with force!
Nothing happened... I did it again pressing even harder...Nothing happened... Another time... The alarm went off! Visions of bad-ass security guys tackling me with stun guns raced through my head and I started frantically pushing random buttons!
Okay the noise stopped, but I still had to phone the security company to tell them that I was indeed not a thief trying to rob the most well known Primary School in Paarl. Shaking (yea I'm kind of a scary pants) I tried to phone them from the school phone but it was restricted. So I phoned from my cell phone. I gave them my (fake) name but couldn't remember my (fake) surname so I pretended that we had a bad connection - see movies do help sometimes. I gave them the password and they were happy and I was relieved.
Then the other band members started to arrive - great, everyone one time and ready. But...no sound. We decided to practise anyway and hopefully a sound guy would come skipping in some time and help us. Yea...that didn't happen. 20 minutes before we went on we started to carry in amps, cords, mics. Thankfully we have real handy dandy guys on our team and we could pray 5 minutes prior to going on. By this time we were all a bit frantic and irritated to say the least but we all were honest and brought it before God. He immediately gave us joy and peace!
So we winged it. At one time I could tangibly feel the Holy Spirit! I just knew that he was pleased and He loved us immeasurably. It was great!
Now usually I wait for someone to make a comment afterward to know how it went but this time I just knew. The Holy Spirit was there and He was pleased that is all that matters.
So the point to my long story. I doesn't matter how you feel - God isn't focused on that. God is focused on ... well ... GOD! That makes everything Great because our feeling can be deceived. So all Glory to God!!!!
Elizabeth