our God is an awesome God

I have been incredibly blessed this weekend. And maybe this is becoming a theme of my blog posts, but I guess I'm thankful for that as well because it means I am learning to see the goodness of God, shown through His people. Let me recap.

Friday and Saturday I was at the Christian Musician Summit up at Overlake, which is this huge conference for church musicians/worship team members that happens every year. Lots of seminars for everybody (guitarists, leaders, keyboardists, bassists, drummers, sound guys, light guys, etc.), several times of corporate worship in their massive auditorium led by amazing worship artists, and concerts both nights. Basically, it's exhausting, exciting, inspiring, and depressing all at the same time. But it's cool because you're surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of Christian musicians. I think the times of corporate worship are one of the most beautiful parts of the event.

Anyway, last year nearly my entire worship team went. It's an expensive event, so I wasn't able to go - and in fact this was my first year going since I really got remotely serious about keyboard and started playing decently. But this year we were able to make it happen, and it was kind of funny because not very many people from my church came this year (because of the price most of them do it every two years or so). Not that it matters all that much; I can take care of myself just fine, but it is nice to know people, especially during the concerts when most church groups are sitting together. But through some last-minute plans changing and a lot of ticket reshuffling, certain people cancelled and it ended up that my dear friend Bret and his amazing wife Carol came with their two boys for a good chunk of the weekend. And that was a big blessing because they kind of took me under their wing and let me hang out with them for most of the weekend. They even took me out to dinner with them on Friday - we get 1 1/2 hours for lunch and dinner both days, so it's a lot of time to kill if you're not doing anything or hanging out with people you know. It was super-sweet. And I can't really explain it all, but because of some things that have been happening, it just meant a lot to me. It was what I needed when I needed it, that kind of a thing.

The seminars were pretty much incredible. I took four on keyboard skills, and most of them were so helpful.....I just want to hole up with my keyboard for a long time and figure out all kinds of new things that I didn't know I could do before. I also went to one on stage presentation (which Bret informed me I had to attend) and that was also amazing - enlightening and devestating, so to speak. The whole thing is like that; you get really inspired, but then you see some of the talent that is way up there and it's kind of depressing. But also inspiring at the same time. It's a weird blend of feelings. The other seminar I went to was presented by Michael Gungor (the guy who wrote Friend of God) and was called the Theology of Creativity. And it would take me a very long post to describe what he said, but it was inspiring and enlightening. To condense it into just a couple of things (from my notes):

"God made you to be you. And you don't have to apologize for it. And you don't have to be embarassed about not fitting a mold. Safety and fear are the enemies of creativity. Being creative means being who God made you, and being that person with all your heart. Being creative is more about being you than being new."

But, all this great stuff notwithstanding, I think the biggest thing I got out of the weekend was something much smaller and much bigger at the same time. Smaller meaning it's not so intellectual - it's very simple. But bigger because it's so much harder and also more earthshattering. And it can be expressed in four words: It's not about me.

This might seem completely obvious to most of you, but for me it's a lesson I am continually learning and then forgetting again, and then God has to hit me on the head and teach it to me yet again. Some of it comes from being an only child I'm sure, where selfishness is so easy. But a lot of it is just me......it's an essence of being human, and one that I struggle with intensely. I think about my life and where it is potentially heading, and I always find myself questioning if it's what I want, if something else wouldn't make me happier, if leaving home is really the right thing to do........especially when I get that look from my worship team that says "please stay here forever."

But when it comes down to it, this story is not about us. Humans aren't even the main characters of the universe (believe it or not). God is the main and only character, and humans are simply the image of the creator within the creation - like an artist's signature. Our whole object is just to point back to the creator, and how marvelous He is.

Again, I'm sure to most of you (especially you good Calivinists who are probably a lot more familiar with the catechism than I) this is completely obvious. I think you have a much better grasp on this than I do. But what I can tell you is that - even though it's really hard - it's so exciting to learn it like it's new. Because even if I'm not entirely happy with "my" life (isn't that an oxymoron now?) from one circumstance to another, I'm not the one in charge of it. The one who created me and is older than the universe is in charge of it, and somehow He is marvelously good and loving. And the only way to express it is in a song Israel Houghton did this weekend called You Hold My World.

You hold my world in Your hands
You hold my world in Your hands
And I am amazed at Your love
I am amazed that You love me
You hold my world in Your hands
You hold my world in Your hands
And I'm not afraid, my world is safe
In Your hands, in Your hands

You won't let go
You won't let go
You won't let go
Never let go

Yeah. It's on youtube. And while you're there, look up Beautiful Things by Michael Gungor. Extraordinary song. Plus Gungor has a cello in his band. and a xylophone too. Yeah. :)

Which reminds me.....I'm going to go explore options for recreating cello parts for worship songs on my keyboard. and............homework. *sigh*