My dad is my hero. Here’s a good word of encouragement from his blog this weekend:
Back in my early days as a worship leader (before history was actually recorded), I had an experience that really impacted the rest of my life. First of all, I come from a family of musicians, and have raised and launched a family of musicians, 3 of whom are worship leaders. God has been good to me! I guess you could say that music is in my blood. I had been involved in music long before God called me to serve Him.
So as a young worship leader I had a good amount of self-confidence, even though I was completely inexperienced. Notice I said “self” confidence. There’s something about musicians, especially if you have to lead a bunch of them. I heard someone once say that musicians are “squirrelly”. It really made sense to me because I am a musician. What he meant was that many musicians don’t like to be told how to play, how loud or soft to play, or how fast or slow to play, etc, when performing or rehearsing with others. The reason is because most really proficient musicians got that way by giving up thousands of hours of personal practice. To be an accomplished musician requires much personal time and energy. Many accomplished musicians become that way mostly by themselves. Of course, there must be teachers and/or mentors involved. But even at that musicians don’t receive from just anyone. They receive mostly from whomever they choose. So let’s just say that a musician’s ability to play represents much of who he/she is.
Back to that life-changing experience. I was a new worship leader. To me I was the hottest thing in a suit at the time. I was on the grand piano. We came out smoking the music. The first song was tight! Man, was I good! It came time for the second song and I ripped (with “self” confidence) into the 3rd song in the set list. You heard right…the 3rd song. At the same time, all other musicians and singers ripped boldly into the 2nd song in the set list. I was determined. I was the leader. I had much “self” confidence. I just knew the rest of the team would recognize that I started on the wrong some and would join with me. Nope! They barreled right on into the 2nd song. Listen, the whole group (but me) was singing one song…and doing it well. I (only) was singing another song…and doing it well. Finally I realized I had to stop this train because it was destined to de-rail very soon. I just stood up from the grand piano held up my hands until everyone stopped. I said to the congregation. “Whups! I think we’d better start this thing again.” After getting me on the right page, we restarted the 2nd song on the list and all went well. What an experience! I was so embarrassed. I wanted to crawl up under the lid of the grand piano (which was up) and close it! I had this really vain thought as we cruised through the 2nd song (the right way this time), “I wonder if people could really tell I messed up?” Remember I said it was a vain thought. The truth is, I just committed about the worst mistake a worship leader could make! I led in the wrong direction.
I’ll have to say that one particular experience changed my life. It humbled me. Even today as a senior pastor, I remember that event. First, we’ll never do things perfectly. And when we think we must, God will use similar events to humble us. Humility is a good thing even though we sometimes must learn it through our failures. Humility says “I can’t do anything without Him.” And it also says, “I don’t have to be perfect, because I can’t be perfect. I need Him to infuse my humanity to bring glory to Himself.” Humility definitely effects others, but it depends solely on our attitude with God. Philippians 2: 5 – 7 says, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. The key here in humility is the emptying of “self”. We learn humility because Jesus lives in us. But humility doesn’t happen just because He’s in us. Humility comes from the “emptying of self”. God will use circumstances and events to help us empty ourselves. Humility is a powerful force that changes lives and situations. If you have a life-changing, humility-infusing situation I’d love to hear about it.
Stop by my Dad’s blog and say “hey” and tell him Russ sent you by.
