Thursday, February 4, 2010

What's On My Heart Today


I'm in a class this semester called "Drama in Ministry" and the book that we are reading through for the class is "Thriving as an Artist in the Church" by Rory Noland.
Reading this book has been somewhat difficult for me personally because it challenges me in certain areas of my life. For example, in Chapter 3 Noland talks about how we need to be vulnerable, listen to our disappointment, to respond to rejection and failure, let our setbacks make us better artists, find God in the midst of our disappointments, and let the wrong doors close so the right ones can open. Those are his main points in this chapter.
The top 3 that are really difficult for me personally are 1) Be vulnerable, 2) Listen to my disappointment, and 3) How to respond to rejection and failure.
Being vulnerable is completely necessary in my opinion so that we can grow closer to one another in a relational aspect and on a spiritual level. Wearing your heart on your sleeve is healthy. Bottling things up inside is not beneficiary because you might explode at the wrong time and at the wrong person.
I hate being vulnerable because I never know how the person I am being vulnerable with, will react. I have a hard time trusting people with my life sometimes because I have been hurt by a lot of people who I thought I could trust. So it does take me awhile to open up to people and to get comfortable enough to share bits and pieces of my life with them. If they abuse any of those privileges of hearing those tid bits of my life then I immediately shut down and I keep quiet. That's just who I am. I'm big on trust.

Listening to my disappointment is something that I have honestly, never heard of in my life until I read this book. I mean yeah I get disappointed sometimes, but I just sulk in that feeling. I never actually listen to see what I could be learning from those disappointing experiences. I always focus more on who or what disappointed me rather than trying to see what God may be doing in the midst of that circumstance in my life.
Another instance where I get easily disappointed is when I feel like I lose my creativity. I write songs when I get inspired. Sometimes they flow perfectly and other times I get insanely frustrated because it doesn't flow smoothly at all. I have a ton of ideas that I want to communicate in a song, but I can never figure out how to communicate those thoughts. This greatly disappoints me because the field of ministry that God has called me to, involves songwriting and I need to just immerse myself in God and what HE wants as opposed to what I want for myself.

I hate failing at things that I am good at. I don't do well with failure. If I think that I didn't sing a song as effectively as I could have then I easily get disappointed in myself and I miss the big picture. Jesus perfects my worship when He presents it to God and I so often miss the meaning of that because when I think I failed, I feel like that song lost its meaning.
My goal with the talent is to praise God with my voice. To sing for Him and no one else. If that is in my heart every time I sing then that should be enough. It's about God....not me.
If my heart-set is in tune with that thought of it all being about God and none of it being about me, then that is when any song that I sing will have meaning and effect. I always know when a song has effect when God really tugs at my heart through it to the point where I can't sing without choking up. I know that worship is not supposed to be an emotionally draining experience, but sometimes when God's presence is so thick and tangible I can't help but get emotional. God changes my life in a different way every time His presence overwhelms the place that I am at. It makes me uncomfortable sometimes and I've come to accept that it is a great thing to be uncomfortable because you know that you're not growing deeper in your walk with God when you're too comfortable.

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