So I’ve been sitting here at From The Hearth since 10:30 this morning, and it’s now 1:30. And I’ve been processing with God about what I had experienced last night, as far as picking up different things in the atmosphere during a worship set while at a youth group. And what I was picking up and discerning had actually been bothering me since then.
God, being the God that He is, had put Kalley Heiligenthal on my heart. She, who was one of the worship leaders last night, had constantly been highlighted to me through the evening. And this afternoon, she walks through the cafe doors and sits down in one of the booths, with a meal and a book, waiting for a friend of hers to arrive.
Seeing her, I stood and walked over, to simply ask her if I could ask her something, regarding how to handle discernment while leading worship. So we sat down, and got to talk for a little bit.
Something that I’ve recognized that I’ll often pick up during worship sets, being a feeler and all, is the sense of competition and performance from others around me. As if our praise is a competition to the throne of God, and as if our private praise to Him is meant to be performed to the people around us. As silly as all of this may sound, it’s actually very common in church cultures.
But my biggest question, is when you’re sensing all of that around you, how do you deal with it and what’s the proper way to handle it. Not to suffer through it or simply ignore it, but how to handle it with God.
It’s one of those things, where the person could rather be clearly doing things to distract you, while they’re doing their fancy riffs, and trying to out do you with their high harmonies, and add lipping. Or sometimes you may just feel the weighty and heavy sense of competition, which unfortunately, can so easily steal your attention. So what’s a good way to handle such a situation?
Kalley was sharing with me, how before she ever starts a set, she likes to pray and allign herself with truth, and what she knows. “I know that Jesus is good and that He died on the cross for me...” Thats some solid doctrine. But then even digging into the depths, like, “What is heaven doing right now?” Well, Heavens pretty much always worshipping, that’s always a good place to start. Or when you start to sense distracting things, “God, are you wanting me to break through this atmosphere? Are you wanting me to wait for your Okay-Go?” “Where should we steer this boat, God?”
I remember, there was one worship set I was leading in particular back in February, in a healing room. I may have prayed up before the set, and got my alone time with Papa. But I remember the set going so roughly, and there was no unity within the band, not so much because that was my fault as the worship leader, but because there were multiple people, including myself, who’s hearts were not aligned and we’re actually questioning what God could be doing, rather then being in agreement and just going for it.
Something that I’ve learned about co-laboring with God, is that you don’t actually have to know what exactly it is that He’s doing in order to partner with Him. It just takes for both of our hands to be on deck and willing to go whichever direction He may be leading.
During that set that just seemed to be going down south by the minute, I finally had to just pause, and stop singing. And eventually the band stopped playing. And I’m not gonna lie, my flesh started to freak out a little bit, because what’s going on when the bands not even playing a melody? How awkward could that have been? And though the band members were looking at me, frantically wondering which song we were moving onto next, I had to tell them to wait on God, because I had no idea. Which actually made a couple of the members freak out a little bit more. But we waited, in silence. And it was glorious and beautiful. Because when you’re willing to sit before the throne of God, taking off your own crown, and listen to whatever He has to say, and do whatever it is He wants to do, He never fails to show up.
Something Kalley said, somewhere in all of the wisdom she was dishing out to me, was how “Instead of getting bullied by those atmospheres, or coming under them, or feeling smaller, they actually have to bow down to Jesus.”
Which means we’re given authority to change atmospheres. You hear it all the time, here at Bethel. How “we change atmospheres, they don’t change us.” Or how, “we’re called to change the atmosphere and host the presence of God wherever we go.” And it’s so true, and it’s great to practice in our lives, but not just some areas. Every area.
I’m excited to excercise in that, the next time I’m in a setting where I feel like the atmosphere is trying to overcome me, when in reality, I have the Heaven given authority to command it to bow down, and “knock that crap off in Jesus’ name.” Authority is a powerful thing. And it’s even more powerful when you’re co-laboring with God, using discernment, wisdom and humility.
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