{W}hole - Downing Doubt

So I was finishing up the book {W}hole by Lisa Whittle and let me tell you friends, that book is AMAZING!!!  There are SO MANY THOUGHTS to share... but I will spare you a lot of them as it would take about 10... or 20... or 50 blogs to share everything flying through my head while I was reading this book.  ANYWAYS I was finishing this book Saturday night and a line towards the end caught my eye... and grabbed my heart.

"Though it is difficult to labor without the guarantee of fruit, that cannot be our motive to serve God or we won't last long."

These thoughts came to me last night (Saturday night) as I finished the book.  So here are my thoughts:  God is saving me right now.  While going to Haiti has been planned with good intentions and in my heart I do believe God wants me to go at some point, I think my focus was a little off here lately.  Some of this began coming to light as I wrote "Breaking Down My Pride" last weekend.  I enjoy helping others but it may be more enjoyable to see that I'm helping others... I enjoy seeing the fruits of my labor.  Who doesn't?  But with that, I think God is really continuing to break down my pride.  I take pride that I have opportunities to go and help instead of focusing my heart on WHY I am going... and that is a question I honestly didn't have an answer to.  And in a sense I think my heart was in the wrong, even with good intentions.  When I went to Africa two years ago, I was frustrated because I felt like I wasn't DOING anything... because I could not SEE what I was doing... rather it was not visible to me what God was working out in the hearts of those we came into contact with while we were there.  I didn't SEE it so in my mind it didn't exist (I have this problem)... the fruit was not visible.  And I'm beginning to realize I may never see it this side of Heaven.  Part of Haiti was exciting me because of the planning and the doing... and I voiced that many times.  I was excited because I was going to be able to SEE my work and the progress throughout the trip, even if it was very small.  My focus was wrong... I was focusing on the fruit... not the seed that needs planting.  WOW!!!  What a thought.  Time to check my heart motives a little bit more :)
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NOW, to share with you what happened this morning at church.  All of the above was last night... the next part of this novel (sorry it is so long) is everything that happened this morning.  I will just say that God is SO STINKIN' COOL!!!  It's awesome!!!  Sorry it is so long... I like to write... it's a disease I have ;).

An add on to Saturday... doubt.  Doubt that I had heard God speak to me about Haiti.  Doubt that I was doing what God wants me to do.  I sat in church this morning and listened to a message about "Courage in the Midst of Doubt" (talk about great timing on God's part... He does that often).  A short time before that I had been briefly involved in a conversation with a co-leader of the Haiti trip, and he was in the process of mentioning to somebody else how three different teams associated with the other co-leader of our team had to cancel plans to go work in Haiti.  Doubt and feelings of being discouraged started to sink in while listening to this message (which is strange to me that doubt was sinking in when I was listening to a message on courage in the midst of doubt... anyways).  I have shared with you some of my issues with doubt and some of the trouble I have with it beating confidence out of my life.  This time seemed a little different.

I sat and listened to the sermon and wondered what God was working out with recent events.  My friend was helping lead worship today.  I see her quite often as she is the front desk manager at Max Fitness East (which is where I go everyday after work).  She has an absolutely BEAUTIFUL voice and is not afraid to share it (she broke it down to Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas is You" last week when I was leaving the gym and it made my day!!!).  It was at that point that I remembered auditions for worship team would be in January right around the time we should have been going to Haiti.  After listening to her, I started the comparison game and doubt sank in a little deeper.  Could I ever even come close to sounding that good?  I have been hesitant to sing around others... it scares me to wonder what people think.  God has shown me a gift I have and reinforced that it is a gift simply through the words of others.  In high school, I sang a solo both my junior and senior years.  My junior year, I left our regional "festival" disheartened at the rating I received and did not make it to the state "festival" (our choir director didn't like the word "competition" so it was a music FESTIVAL).  Senior year it was I-ratings all the way through!!!  My parents have mentioned how they figured I would do something with music in college and how they were surprised when I stayed away from it.  They always encouraged me to sing in the choir at church.  I never did it and will admit I was intimidated by the voices around me that I decided I would never measure up to.  I doubted my ability to measure up.

People have heard me play my guitar and sing and they tell me that I should be helping with worship.  For at least the past year and a half now, a mentor has told me to get my butt in gear and get involved in worship.  I usually shrug her off the first few times, not gonna lie.  Were the words of others really honest?  Did they honestly think I could be that good?  Then again, why would they lie to me?  God has given the signs (words of others, The Networks class I took on spiritual gifting, as well as various other courses on spiritual gifts) and finally I found myself sitting in a meeting with the worship pastor at Faith E. Free.  I found myself in that meeting with many others I assumed were more willing to worship and better at it than I am.  I was finding myself hesitant and unsure of why I was even bothering.  Then he mentioned auditions because of the amount of people signed up to help (talk about an internal freak out taking place).  My heart was basking in the gloomy blanket of doubt instead of confidence.  Am I avoiding confidence because I have let it lead to pride and sin so often in my life?

I will admit Haiti has taken up most of my thoughts the past few months.  The auditions for worship team were placed on the back burner, something I often do if I don't want to do something or doubt is blinding opportunity.  I was hesitant and scared to think about it, afraid of the outcome.  So Haiti it was.  Haiti was the focus of prayer and thought.  Haiti was something I wanted to do... and I continue to pray for the opportunity to go whenever my heart is where God wants my heart to be.  I do feel God has given me a heart for missions (Haiti and Africa have excited me to unbelievable proportions).  I also believe that one day God will bless me with opportunities to go and serve.  Haiti had become a priority because I wanted it to be.  God has other "priorities" in mind for me I'm coming to find out.  Expanding on my spiritual gifting is one of them, which I have been told many times by many people to do anyways (what is the point of gifts if we aren't going to use them?).  I thought I would be facing a big fear by going to Haiti.  God, however, wants me to face a bigger fear:  kicking doubt in the butt and overcoming the fear that pride may overtake my heart.

I sat and listened to beautiful voices this morning, wondering if I could "measure up".  I was lost in thought during the last song (I will admit part of that may have been because I didn't know the song).  Then God spoke to my heart, words that scare me but steer my heart to a "priority" that needs to truly be a priority.  It is hard to put into words but it went something like this:  "How can I allow you to follow your own heart when you cannot follow Mine for you?"  What did this speak to me?  I was overwhelmed by emotion... trying not to break down because I didn't want to deal with running mascara (yeah I said that).  I believe God has given me a heart for missions, something I believe He will continue to grow in me and educate me in throughout my life.  I believe He will also reveal my "role" in missions.  What He is showing my heart, however, is that He wants my obedience to His heart for me before honoring my own.

It is a scary thought to honor an unknown.  It scares me to take worship team off of the back burner and make it a priority.  The lie, I am realizing, is that I am not good enough.  It is a lie that has controlled me for much of my young life.  The thought of measuring up reinforced that lie, a lie that God called out this morning as I listened to a sister sing!!!  It is scary to make a priority of something I love to do but am hesitant to share with others because I am worried about what they might think of me.  I am scared... but my heart is actually somewhat excited.  It is a strange feeling really.  But here is the big thought and truth behind this... which hopefully makes sense... :  I have to want to follow God's heart before I can follow my own, no matter how well intentioned my motives may seem at the time.  By learning to follow after what His heart longs for for me, it then becomes my own desire in a good, not selfish, way.  My heart needs to desire that which God wants for me and has given me.  God has gifted so we can gift and blessed so we can bless.  It takes that step into obedience to bless with the gift He has given.