All I Had To Do Was Show Up

I have been so blessed this year by having the opportunity to lead worship at a variety of places.  I love leading worship.  I love Jesus.  I love music, and I love gathering with people and singing praises to God, pouring out our hearts to God, and meeting with Him with my Christian brothers and sisters corporately.


Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:25


The more  I serve Him, the more He teaches me.  One of my favorite lessons this year has been the awareness of this, "All I had to do was show up."


I was invited to lead worship in Jacksonville, IL.  My friend Renee Swope had introduced me to them last year, and I led worship at their annual women's conference in 2010, and I was so excited when they asked me back to lead at this year's conference.  Last year, I led with music tracks, but this year they asked if I would lead with some of their musicians.  At first, I was a little apprehensive to commit to that.  It's sometimes hard just to "walk in" and lead with other musicians that you've never worked with.  But they assured me that their musicians could play anything, so I trusted them and agreed to lead in that manner.


I met, for practice, with their musicians the Friday night before the event.  Practice went pretty well considering the fact that we'd never played together before.  It wasn't what I would call excellent, but it certainly wasn't bad.  When you merge like that, most of the time even great musicians will play conservatively because you're trying to get the feel of each other's style, so that then you can play more freely.  And that's pretty much what happened at that practice, we got to know each other musically.


The next day was the event.  During our second song of worship, I remember noticing that the music was excellent, and in that moment, I felt God's presence immensely, and had this overwhelming, incredible awareness of "I am merely a vessel."  All I had to do was show up.  Do you "get" that?  Does that make sense?  


Often times when God calls us to something we try to figure it all out.  How are we going to make this work?  How is it all gonna come together properly?  And we stress out over the details of how to make things happen.  I'm not saying we don't need to prepare well in order to serve Him with excellence because we do!  However, we need to do our part of being responsible, and just let Him do was He does so well.  He just needs someone who is willing to serve Him.  Willing to be obedient to go where He calls you to go.  And He'll do the rest.  He'll enable you.  Empower you.  Equip you.  Give you everything you need to fulfill His purposes.  All I had to do was show up!!!


Fast forward from that event to the Unity Night Event.  This is an event that I/we had prepared for months for.  We form a team of women from various churches in the community to lead worship at this event, and God has given me the awesome responsibility/privilege of heading up that team.  I love these girls and we have become great friends.  Just prior to the Friday night Unity event, the Men's prayer team gathered around us to pray for us.  Then they anointed each of our heads with oil and said a prayer over each of us.  When Paul Boyer anointed my head with oil, he said these words, "Lord, Missy has the night off." 


Tears began to flow from my eyes the moment Paul spoke those words.  I was reminded of the event in Jacksonville and the thought of, "all I have to do is show up".  It was the same here.  I did have the night off.  Yes, I was on stage, yes I had a responsibility, but I could be "Free" because God had complete control of every part of what was about to happen.  All I had to do was be obedient to show up and do what He had called me to do.


What is God calling you to do?  Oh there is SUCH huge blessings in serving Him.  I have found that the greatest blessing and reward in being obedient to Him is that you get more of Him.  More of His presence.  

John 14:21 (Amplified Bible)

²¹The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I [too] will love him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. [I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.]


Do you want to experience Jesus more?  Then listen to Him carefully, and go where He tells you to go.  Do what He encourages you to do.  All you have to do is be faithful and show up.  He'll do the rest.