When God Has Other Plans

There are just those times in life when you have no other choice than to believe that God has other plans than the ones you made yourself. This last Sunday was one of those days. I mean, we were set up ready to go, and within 5 minutes we were completely undone. I’ll tell you what happened, and perhaps how I could have responded differently.

The Situation:

Here we are, 10 minutes until the start of our service, and I stand at the mic guitar in hand with a broken string. Never mind that I didn’t have any extra strings, I was gonna get through it, even if it sounded bad. Here we are, 10 minutes until the start of service, and our power point guy isn’t there. Here we are, 10 minutes until service starts, frantically trying to get the power point re-typed up… with no adapter to plug my computer up to the projector. So, here we are, stuck with a guitar in shambles, and no system to present the lyrics. Wow, not the way I intended to begin our time of worship. I mean, does that seem ideal to anyone else? I hope not. @.@

What I did:

I grabbed my folder, tore through a couple of songs that I thought were more familiar to the congregation and threw out a few of the songs that were not as familiar. I called out the song lines as fast as I could, something I normally am not too anxious to do anyways. I always feel a little strange calling out lines consistently. Besides, I am usually sure that people can read decently well, as I am sure almost all of our congregation have college degrees. We repeated a lot. We repeated the choruses A LOT. I was really focused on calling out the words, so I didn’t really ever feel a flow. I didn’t feel like I really made it far enough through it to say that I was really worshipping. I tried to conclude the songs in a timely manner because it seemed like people weren’t really happy about being asked to try to sing without the lyrics provided.

What I thought:

I thought God was trying to show me/us that it isn’t quite about the words that we are singing (although they are quite important, for sure) but really the heart of our worship he was after. That I thought it was a challenge God was laying out on the table to really forget all fears, and just let loose. To be honest, I have no idea how much people succeeded in meeting that challenge, but I feel like it was a first step at least, but only a step, no leaps.

What I wish I had done differently:

I would certainly have picked a few new songs again, that’s for sure. I would not have gone the traditional route though. I would not have stuck to the songs; verse, chorus and such like I did. I think that if God were challenging us to step out of the comfort zone of pre-prescribed words, and really go for it, then you should really go for it. I mean, if you can’t trust that God was there, then what’s the point. I didn’t take any chances, I didn’t take any risks, I didn’t step out in faith, I didn’t really let loose and let my heart of worship spring forth. I would like to have stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park. I think that I, as a leader, hit a safe single and landed on first. And, that’s ok I suppose, but, I would have liked to have gone for the home run. You know what I’m saying?

In Conclusion:

Sometimes God has other plans and you try to be right there, bobbing and weaving, and really going with the flow. Sometimes though, it’s all you can do not to freak out that nothing seems to have gone right. I hope that were I to “get the opportunity again” that I would be willing to take a risk, willing to put it all on the line. I mean, my God’s worth that. He is worth everything that I am able to give. I could have given so much more.

Were you called up to the plate? Did you miss your big shot? Or did you take it and hit it out of the park?

Let’s hear your story!