Worship and Excellence
It's hard to believe, but I only have one more tour left with NLDC before I head home in August. It's been an amazing year, and I know God's going to continue teaching and doing even more amazing things in the months to come. But let me share with you a little bit about what's been happening lately!
God's taught me so much this tour I hardly even know where to start. I guess what God's taught me the most about has been worship. This tour I had the privilege of traveling with several people who truly have a heart for worship, and it's been a challenge. I've always had a difficult time connecting with God through song, even though I love music and listen to it all the time. Our team's praise and worship for the first half of the tour was really difficult for me. I felt like the entire team was connecting to God except for me. One day I found myself incredibly discouraged by this -- I felt broken, messed up, like something inside me didn't work. If I couldn't praise God through song, what kind of Christian was I? I kept asking God, "Why? Why can't I do this? Why does this have to be so difficult?" And a few weeks later, God answered. After a long, busy day, we got a chance to have some free praise and worship as a team -- able to sing or do whatever we needed to do to connect with God. So I prayed. I asked God again what my problem was, but this time, I asked until I got an answer. After praying and seeking for nearly an hour while my team sang, I heard God's response. He said, "It's because I created you to worship me differently. I created you to worship me through creating! You are closest to me when you are grabbing a hold of the part of me I put in you -- the artistic part, the creative part. But you haven't been creating. How can you connect with me through song when you haven't connected with me the way I specifically made you to connect with me?" And it's true -- I always have felt the closest to God when I am creating something. For example, few nights earlier, I had been hit with a sudden insomnia attack, and so until I finally dozed off at four in the morning, I wrote skits in my head. It suddenly clicked with me -- that was an intimate time of worship with God! Since that night, my corporate worship had felt more intimate, more personal. It was because my deepest connection with God was fulfilled. That was the reason. That was why. God has created me to worship him through creating. So in the last half of the tour, I have been trying to make sure I spend some time every day journaling, or writing, or creating skits with God -- tapping into who he is as creator, who he's designed me to be. It's amazing. And my corporate worship time has been so much deeper since then. I haven't abandoned worship through singing -- God's still called me to do that, to a worship of obedience. He hasn't given me the gift of connecting with him through song, but I can connect with him in my writing. I so want to encourage you to be looking for how God most intimately connects with you, and then pursue that, more than just singing songs to him on Sunday morning. If you're just singing the songs, but don’t love him the way he made you to love him it's all just lip service. No wonder it felt like my worship meant so little -- it really DID mean that little. Wow, what freedom I've been able to find in this revelation! It's amazing.
On a somewhat unrelated subject, I've been reading through the Old Testament and this tour I was mostly in Joshua and Judges. I was struck by a large portion of Joshua, chapters 15-18. Joshua has led the Israelites into the Promised Land and now they're done fighting as a group. They've parceled out each tribe's section, and they've gone to go live in it. Chapter after chapter, it lists all the land that the tribes have . . . and then lists all these other nations that continued to live in these portions of the country, nations that Israel hasn't driven out. And then some of the Israelite tribes won't even go live in their sections, they just keep staying all huddled together doing nothing. So Joshua stands up in chapter 18, verse 3, and says “How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?" It really made me think. The Israelites were all going strong and doing great as long as they had Joshua, their leader, to push them forward. But as soon as he left them to their own devices, they were afraid to move or do anything on their own. They moved into their land but didn't push the foreign nations out, or they just stayed where they were and didn't go anywhere at all. How often do we do this as Christians? We do all sorts of amazing things when someone is beside us, pushing us, motivating us, but when left to ourselves we lose our confidence. We forget God is still with us. We're afraid to move or do anything. This is a challenge for me as I leave NLDC -- I can only pray that I’ll be bold enough to step back into the world I came from, except this time I plan to take possession of the land, even without the drama company pushing me to excellence in my walk with God. I would like to challenge all you reading this to push yourselves to excellence. You can't always count on others to be there for you. They're not SUPPOSED to be the ones who always push you. Yes, they help and guide, but in the end, your walk with God is yours and yours alone. So take charge of it. Make it what it's supposed to be, even if nobody is there pushing you.
This tour we had a team head out to England for several weeks and do a lot of ministry there. I know we're hoping to make another missions trip later this year, though I don't know where we're heading yet. Although I will not be with NLDC anymore when this next trip takes place, any money you send through the PayPal link at the bottom of this page will ultimately go toward sending teams overseas to be able to minister in new places through sketch drama. If you cannot support us monetarily, then we would greatly appreciate your prayer. For our vans, our teams, for God to open doors and hearts for the new recruits He's calling to join, that churches are open to our ministry, that our skits remain fresh and original, that lives are changed, that people in need are ministered to... the list goes on. I know God has used and can continue to use this ministry to make a difference in people's lives. Please join me in interceding for this ministry and asking God to make all of this happen! Thanks for all your prayers and support.
God bless,
Hannah
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