A few weeks ago I led the morning worship gatherings at Sunset and shared some of what I’ll say in this post. Over the summer I had the stark realization that I had become a full-time worship leader and a part-time follower of Christ. I lead worship a lot. Most weeks I am on stage over 20 hours a week, for 4 different weekly gatherings. It kind of feels like being on tour, except it isn’t a month long.
I had become more focused on what I did than who I was.
I think this is easy to do: to become lost in how we work out our salvation before focusing on who our salvation comes from. Coming to this realization was extremely hard, because it showed me how far away from Christ-centered I had gotten.
I know I’m not alone in this. Many of us have at some point gotten good at faking things by becoming “excellent” at what we do without even thinking about why we do it. Or we’re good at looking like we have our spiritual life all in order, when the reality is quite the opposite.
As this became clear over a vacation I took in August I made a very focused effort to do this school year different.
It meant watching less sports, reading fewer blogs, using Twitter/Facebook less, it meant sacrificing some time with friends and my wife (yes, my wife too), but it also meant that the main thing would be the main thing in my life. I’m taking extra time to do reading outside of my required reading for school. I’m waking up earlier to read the Bible and spend time in prayer before I start my day. To do more of that has meant sacrificing other things. I simply cannot be a truly successful worship leader if I’m not leading from a heart of worship.
I heard Craig Groeschel say, “The difference between where you are and where God wants you to be is the pain you are unwilling to endure.”
Those words pierced me when I heard them. For me it meant sacrificing the time outside of work that I hoard to myself instead of giving it to God. My job has such a high level of responsibility week in and week out that I tend to come home and spend a few hours wasting away. I had gotten really good about being intentional with my time at work but not at home.
In the end, our lives are not our own, they were bought for a high price.
And we should be living lives that are first focused on Him, after that we then figure out how life continues in a way that honors Him.
I’d welcome your reaction to this.
