FOR MAN OR FOR GOD?

I’m not sure if you’ve ever felt the same as me but throughout my entire life I’ve felt the pressure of inadequacy. I would never be enough. In my head I believed that if I reached too high then I was doing too much. I would be bothering people. Or they would think that I shouldn’t be doing X, Y, or Z.

There have been two areas where I have felt this the strongest. One is in worship. Since I started singing, there were many times I felt unseen, unsupported, and not enough in the eyes of worship pastors. This isn’t to expose anyone or shame anyone but it’s the truth of my journey. All I wanted was someone to see me as worthy of attention and pour into my gifting and the call God put on my life. But I never got that. I realized that if it was something I desired then I had to seek it, I had to find the help, I had to pour myself into it. No one would do it for me. Regardless, I still have felt the sadness that the very people who were supposed to steward my gift were the very people diminishing me.

Over all of these years I just realized something that God has been trying to teach me all along. Every time I seek the Lord in this area, he tells me the same thing. Who are you doing this for? Is your purpose for man to see you? Or for Me to see you? Are you trying to impress people or are you ministering to Me? He reminded me Paul’s words in Colossians 3:23-24,

“Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.”

This hit me hard. What have I been doing this whole time? I loved to worship, I gave everything I had every time but when I was rejected the sadness overtook me. I didn’t have my focus on the right thing. I was wanting to be seen, acknowledged, validated. Over the last several months, the Lord has been working in me: It’s something done for the Lord and not for people.

This past weekend a really great friend of mine invited me to come lead worship at her church. The morning of everything was a mess. My son had been crying all night and my husband was taking him to the emergency room to make sure nothing was wrong (don’t worry, he is fine). But my morning didn’t go to plan. There was no peace in it. I didn’t get to warm up like I wanted and during rehearsal my toddler was running around distracting me.

Something really interesting happened despite the chaos—I was able to let go. I didn’t think about how I was singing at all. I realized that these people didn’t know my story. They were just hearing the worship God told me to lead them into. It wasn’t about perfection. It was about worship to the King of Kings. In that chaos those were still my kids, I still loved them, and poured into them. My heart was still for them. In the night, I spoke in tongues over the health of my son and sang over him. That was not for the attention of man.

So when I happened to be on a stage, I knew God was seeing me as I see my kids. And so I sang, just for Him.

This same sort of inadequecy I have felt about my writing. What would I even write? Would it matter to anyone?

And so as I sang the same truth applied here, what am I doing this for? Attention? Validation? Or did God put it on my heart for the right people at the right time?

The truth is, both my worship and my words belong to Him first. If He is the one who gave the gift, then He is also the one who will steward its fruit. My job is not to force recognition. My job is to be faithful.