Toilet Bowl and the Worship Team

How does a person remains humble especially in the music team?

As they say, No where in the church are egos bigger than in the music department. And that is why I feel the urge of blogging this one down.

A good mentor once told me, that there’s a worship leader in a certain church that were once ask “What keeps you humble?” from there he answered right away “Well, during the days when I’m not on the stage leading, I was the one who’s cleaning the church’s restroom”

Go figure!

You see, right from the start the man already knew that its not about him being served by the limelight but its all about serving the one true master, Jesus. He followed Jesus and obey his words.. that’s its not about just being on the stage.. but its all about serving Him anywhere and that includes cleaning the toilet bowl..

A heart of a worshiper doesn’t have a limit after all, its not having all the lights focus on you when you’re leading, its not about being on a big stage, and its neither about being popular and you not wanting to accept other jobs anymore and I’ve seen much of these examples happening on a church, and that includes me being a victim of my ego.

The true heart of a worshiper is wherein you know that serving doesn’t have to be you being served (and accepting this hard truth), that there is no limit on serving God no matter what it takes. Its about passing on the baton, doesn’t need to worry much on how big the stage is, and about who we are when we are not leading on the stage.

Servant-hood is the key, we are all serving only the Master, which is God. Serving without being hesitant whether it is the big church that we’re serving or only the small church.

We should always remember that as we remain humble, the real master lifts us up on the pedestal, and not us exerting or boasting our efforts dragging ourselves on the pedestal.

Now I challenged you to these questions;

Am I only serving myself to the point that I only wanted to just perform on stage?
Did God called me to lead only in the big church and the big church alone?
Am I conscious about only leading worship alone?
Lastly, Am I willing to clean a toilet bowl?

Overcooked Meal

Ever seen a man without any problems at all? Well definitely not! As we go through life, it is inevitable for us to have problems and that’s a fact!

As others would say acceptance is the key to success, now I’m letting everyone know that we need to accept that problems is part of our daily liives. Some problems may be too easy for us to ignore and some are not.  Some won’t even cost any sacrifice at all and yet some would do.The bottom line is problems are there everyday.

I have seen much, I have experienced much, I have conquered much.

So why are there any problems at all? One of my smallgroup member once asked me “If there is God and we have all been saved, bakit pa tayo nagkakaproblema? (Why do we still have problems), now that got me into thinking… then eventually I answered “its simply because God loves us” and that’s the end of our conversation.

But wait some people would actually react like this “Say what?!?”

You know sometimes people tend to a look on a problem like he/she was looking on an overcooked meal, as simple as that, flat line, and end up suffering while eating that meal and accepting it as easy as that even if it causes us pain in the stomach.

But what we need to do is to look beyond the problem, look beyond the meal and find if there are still good portions of it and throw away the bad portions of the meal. In the same way, we should look beyond our problems, taking away the negative part of it and look for the hidden blessings that is in store for us. In that way, we would end up enjoying the best part of the meal.

Problems are there for us to learn, to persevere, and to put our sole trust to God and this is a decision for us to do and accept. There was a man named Job who were afflicted by many problems and yet end up praising God, a man of perseverance despite of all that is happening to his life. He accepted it and in the end God blessed Job more than he could ever imagine. Now what’s my point? Well, as we learn to accept, as we persevere on facing our problems, as we began to trust God and not the people around, just as Job did. We can definitely conquer our problems.

As it is written, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man” Psalm 118:8 (NIV)

God would want us to cry out to Him and acknowledge that we need Him more than any man/woman in this world. Coz the main purpose of such problems is not for us to be disappointed but rather for us to learn and fully understand the real purpose behind it. God wants us to be strong and yet to call upon Him rather than call others and be end up being weak. That’s what problems are made for.

This is also one way of how God shows His love for us, He wanted us to learn, to seek, and to trust Him, no matter what.

Another point would be, problems keeps us from being humble. As we began to accept things, that is the time when we humble ourselves.. and let God rule over our lives… As James 4:10 would always remind us “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up” and that’s most probably the big risk for us to endure.

Maybe next time, as we learn, we won’t be eating the same overcooked meal again but rather feasting on the best tasting dishes we could ever imagine.