A Night of Encouragement

"If I had decided to give up music forever, tonight would've changed my mind."

That's what I told my girlfriend, Stacy, after playing at First Baptist Church Columbiana this past Sunday night. It was an incredible time of worship. This was the first time on the tour that I've been able to play from a real, baby grand piano at center stage. There were approximately 100 people there. Although the above statement about giving up music wasn't true, I have been in a sort of "lull" musically for the past month. I didn't play but one gig in February, and the other one I was supposed to play with a buddy of mine ended up being a no-show. I doubt it was anything personal. The church had a big conference that day, and there was the threat of sleet that night, but I think it was also poorly advertised.

Sometimes it's easy to think that if you have a small crowd, then the particular church you're playing at really doesn't care about your music. While that may or may not be true, any musician can testify that it's always encouraging when people show up to listen to your music. What made Sunday night special was this: I have a feeling that most of the people that came that night weren't there to specifically hear me; they were there because they have a dedication to the Lord and to fellowship. A dedication to their church and to worshipping together. I just happened to be the worship leader for the night. Some of them were my friends from Montevallo, and two, specifically, were friends that I used to be in a band with. The church was very supportive, but I don't credit that to myself, because I don't believe it was me that impacted them. I believe that God's Spirit touched a lot of people, and led them to give SO THAT his ministry through me might continue.

Fasting

I've been at a youth pastors conference in Duluth, GA for the past few days. To be honest, it didn't exactly get off to a great start. I arrived Monday afternoon to heavy Atlanta traffic (nobody knows what traffic is living in Birmingham), and was almost late arriving to the first meeting. Fortunately, I was just in time. I quickly realized that I was probably the only single, unmarried male there. Every guy I met was married and had brought his wife along with him. How sad, I thought. These guys got to bring someone along with them, and here I am, 150 miles from home, and I don't know anybody (Chris, I guess I know how you must have felt moving to Pulaski). Until tonight (Wednesday), I was rather depressed. I now believe that the reason for this was little time with God (20 minutes over the course of 2 1/2 days to be exact), which I was able to finally get this afternoon.

My pastor gave me a book for my birthday last Sunday entitled A Hunger for God by John Piper. I had actually meant to leave it at home and read another book I had brought about youth ministry, seeing that's what the conference was about. But God knew I would need Piper's words to spur me along, and when I arrived at the hotel, I noticed that it was still in my car. So I got in bed Monday night, frustrated with my lack of desire for the Lord, and began to read. To make a long story short, here's what I learned in a paraphrase:

Many times the things that destroy our appetite for God are not evil things, but rather good things. Things that are ok - gifts from God, for example: TV, video games, surfing the internet (for good things), eating, drinking, playing music, reading books...you name it. These things are more likely to destroy our appetite for God than "evil" things. How? Because they're o.k. in and of themselves. They're gifts from God, and we're not condemned to use them. But that's precisely the point. When we begin to feast on these things too much, they "fill" us up, leaving no appetite for the Lord. We begin worshipping the creation and not the Creator, and our bellies are full from feasting from the table of "good", when we could have been feasting from God's table..."better"!
For the Christian, fasting should be used to feast upon Christ and his blessings bestowed to us. It does not make anyone more spiritual if they fast, and it does not make anyone less spritiual if they don't. Christian fasting, as Piper describes it, is designed to cause our sins to surface (those which were hidden from our minds) and our hearts to develop an appetite for God.

All of that was paraphrased for the Preface, Introduction, and the first chapter. It's definitely helped me see my need for fasting, because my appetite for God hasn't been much more than a handful of peanuts. I'd like to see it be the equivalent of a 4-course meal. Wouldn't it be easier if it were the evil things that kept me from the Lord? How much easier they would be to pinpoint. But it's the good things that cause me to lose my appetite, God's gifts, and fasting from them will help me to put God back in his rightful place.