God has a strange sense of humor

Last night as I laid away in bed, I prayed that the worship session wouldn’t be as difficult as it seemed, and that the kids will really learn to not be afraid. I also left the entire matter into God’s hands, and prayed that He would help me through it all, and that no matter what happens, I will trust in His guidance. Now, I’m supposed to be in at 8:30AM, since the day for the kids starts at 9AM. I got in at 9AM on the dot. I woke up last because I stayed up late the night before prepping for this morning’s set, and also making their test papers. My mom woke me at 8:30 and I brushed, changed, stuffed my contacts into my eyes, and left for work. Anyone who’s ever led worship with me (especially at retreats) know that I hate leading within an hour of getting up and right after a meal.

So there I was, stuck in traffic on Union street, with my eyes closed and my head continuously repeating, “God, I know what I said last night, but this isn’t funny.” Of ALL THE DAYS I showed up late to work, it’s the one day I’m supposed to be in early! Right after I signed, I ran upstairs to  set up, with the kids following closely. None of them knew that I was going to lead that morning, heck, I don’t even know how Maria found out, but  I remember thinking to myself, “Sam! This is cutting too close! How are you not panicking?!” The day before I asked a kid who has been helping to lead worship to join me, and as soon as he walked up next to me to wait for my instructions, I my heart was at ease. As I told the kids that they were going to be one of the toughest group I’ll ever have to lead, I started to sense God’s hand on me. Once I started doing “The Heart of Worship”, I was on familiar grounds once more. I believe in leading by example, and for all the times that I’ve led worship, I’ve tried to keep it between me and God, and that hopefully the congregation would pick up on that and open the gateway of praises.

My last song for the set was “Deep Deep Down Down”, and by that time they started to warm up a little bit more for worship. When I walked off the stage, I felt so accomplished and satisfied. Throughout the day, a lot of my kids came up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed worship (and the other half just mocked me for humiliating myself, but hey, it wasn’t a show for them!). It really made me happy that at least they were putting some effort into the worship sessions. Today at Big Apple Games, the coach from Adelphi was talking about how people don’t want to try things because they are afraid of how it may look like from the outside. I know it seems like a really shallow thing to say, especially for Christians, but I think that it’s 100% true. The fear of failing hinders us from taking that giant leap. My coach used to always tell me that I make errors sometimes because I didn’t have enough confidence in myself; he used to tell me that the reason why he puts me out there is because he believes I can do it, now I have to believe that. Today I leaped, although very hastily because of time, but I leaped nonetheless. Whether I fly or flop, that’s up to Him.

“For if God is with us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31