Tuesday, October 19, 2010

"I never really expirienced change...."

This title could spark some conversation! I haven't updated in a while and surprisingly I have some things to say. To start: Life has been absolutely amazing. Work has been busy, Jesus has been teaching me a lot, my family has been awesome, and chuch has been beyond belief!

I am actually going to share with you something that Jesus did last week and it completely rocked my world!

As some of you may know I am one of the drummers for worship at "The Harbor". Last week I was asked by Jenna to play drums and for the first time in my life I didn't want to play. I didn't know where these feelings were coming from and they were extremely frustrating. I tried praying through them and the only answer I got from Jesus was "play". I felt trapt because I LOVE playing but it's really hard to play when you don't want to... As the week went on I came to term with a lot of pride in my life. God really showed my how prideful I can be with the gifts he has blessed me with and how cocky I am behind the drumset. I come across as really arrogant sometimes... it was disgusting for me to see.

When Sunday came I spent the morning at starbucks. I did some reading and listened to the worship slections for service. At this point I still had absolutely no desire to play drums. I get a phone call from my Mom sharing with me some extremely surprising and disipointing information about a family memeber. To not go too deep into it... I was crushed. I wanted to leave and spend time with my family and pray for them, with them (for the first time) and just show them my love. God had bigger plans though.

As I left starbucks I recall sending Neil (my pastor) a text message asking him for prayer. I couldn't sense God's presence but somehow in 4 hours I was going to be "worshiping Him". All I could feel was pride stepping in. I contemplated calling Jenna and backing out of my commitment... I contemplated not calling and not showing up. However, I knew one thing and that was "God is in control whether I feel Him or not. He is going to step in and I need to let go over everything that is going on and give it all to Him."

I showed up at the church and got behind the set. Immediately went to the drumset to relase my feelings. I'm not a very verble person with many people about how I feel. I only spoke to one person all day about what I was feeling. Pride set in immediately... I couldn't hit parts I wasn't feeling comfortable behind the drumset. I was faking everything, I didn't WANT to be there but I knew I had to be.

As practice ended I felt like I needed to get before God, alone and seek Him. I begin praying for God's presence to overcome me and help me worship Him. Help me not play to show off. I wanted to play well but it didn't matter if I made mistakes. I wanted confidence in my playing but I didn't want to chase perfection. There's was so much junk going on in my life I had a lot of pain.

As we started the first song I felt God take over. It was something I have never felt in my entire life. Usually when I play I want to play well and have people tell me I did a great job. I chase perfection constantly. Since I was a kid I wanted to be the best drummer out of all the people I knew. In high school I was always one person away from being the best. Starting college I met a kid who is now my bestfriend who out did me too.

Essentially, the past 15 years of my life were all based on personal gain with all the types of drumming I did.

I came to realize that God is the one who gave me this gift. It didn't come from my own doing, it came from Him. As I seek Him more he provides everything I NEED.I probably made a ton of mistakes this past week but I felt like I worshiped God and grew closer to Him. I wasn't looking to hear "You did a great job Jon". For the first time in my life I felt like I gave my life fully to God's plan for me. It was only 2 hours!However, it made me realize how reliable God is and how much He loves me. I never expirienced His love like this. It was overwhelming and amazing! It broke down a ton of walls in my person relationship with Jesus....


Here's a video I watched mid-week. It made me realize a lot in my life. Aaron Gillespie has been a drummer I listened to and imitated since being a Christian....