Hi everyone! I’m Ben, and I had the pleasure of serving as one of the musical worship coordinators this fall term. I wanted to share about my experience with the ministry and how God has been working in it to bring about all the good fruit borne through the ministry this term.
After serving last spring term as a team leader and seeing how fruitful serving God that way was, I felt God calling me to use the time I was afforded by being on co-op this term to serve as a musical worship coordinator. Seeing how the previous term went by pretty smoothly, I was pretty confident that coordinating the ministry this term would be pretty manageable.
Boy, was I wrong.
Many plans are in a man’s heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand.
— Proverbs 19:20
If there’s anything I’ve learned throughout my life, especially this term, it’s that when you fall into the trap of thinking that you’re going to be fine doing things yourself, God humbles you pretty hard and breaks down your pride in a way you’ll never forget. Not only will nothing ever go the way you expect it, but God also always reminds you that He’s fully in control and that His plans are so much better than yours by working things out in ways that you could have never anticipated. God always reminds us that we don’t need to worry about the future, whether that be a serving role or really, any other part of our life (Romans 8:28, Psalm 23:2, Matthew 6:31–34)! He’s got you and trying to grasp control you’re not supposed to have will just end up disappointing you.
This was made pretty evident in the way God tossed pretty much all the plans I had for this term out the window right from the start. So much happened to the point where it was painfully obvious that I had to stop relying only on myself and open up more to listening to God and others around me. As an overthinker, I like to have all my bases covered and will often go to great lengths to prevent anything wrong from happening, whether it be being ridiculously early for anything or having several backup plans just in case something does go wrong, among other things. It’s easier said than done, but I’ve learned that as a Christian, it’s pointless to keep worrying about all these things when the all-powerful and infinite God loves us so much and does not need us to be perfect to accomplish His perfectly good will through us or otherwise (Luke 12:25, Philippians 4:6–7, 1 Peter 5:7, Psalm 23:3).
For example, on two separate occasions this term, I’ve had to miss leading worship sets due to being sick, and I’ve had mental breakdowns from many aspects of my life spiraling out of control, such as other things happening in the ministry or my social life. For things in my life like the worship practices and retreat I missed, I constantly worry that things will go wrong while I’m not there and sometimes get irrationally upset with myself for not being able to be there to make sure that that doesn’t happen — my praise team knows this all too well. Worship teams were formed much later than anticipated this term, leading to stress surrounding scheduling musical worship ministry events like workshops and Praise and Prayer events. I quickly found myself drained and lacking the motivation to do anything and suffering alone until I cried out to God to carry me through my struggles and recognized that even though I couldn’t do this without God’s wisdom and strength, I would be able to do all that I needed with God’s power if I humbly relied on Him. God helped me see that rather than Him starting to be there for me from that point, God had never stopped working His will in the first place, quenching my worries one by one as each event and planning session passed wonderfully beyond my expectations, showing that God truly was in control even when I wasn’t. It’s really easy to want everything to go exactly as planned without any chance of something going wrong, but it gives you even more peace and assurance knowing that God will take care of everything. God reminds us through His Word: “Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10).
My encouragement to you is that even when we don’t realize it, God is always actively working to show His power, love, and grace to us. It may take a while for God to reveal how He’s working in your life, but be assured that you can rest in God’s sovereign power and surrender control of your life to Him without fear of the future, since He truly loves you and cares for you. You are so loved!
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, […] casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
— 1 Peter 5:6–7
