Miracles: Feeling Like Death in the GNS days

Romans 8:28  For we know that God works all things together

for the good of those who love Him and are called to His purpose

And I pray that as I use this blog to talk about my experiences with Him, that He would, 

as He always has done,

 be faithful to His word and use my experiences for the good of those who trust Him and are called to His purpose. 

Whether that means to encourage you to never give up even when you feel like not going on, or maybe it just encourages you to talk about what He's done in your life more. I pray that it moves you.

I used to lead a band called Goodnight Saturday(GNS). Most of us were in the youth band at our church but it wasn't necessarily our youth band. We were the ones that played the music that I wrote. 

We'd played a few Disciple Nows back to back at our church and we really enjoyed it, and I still believe that God did big things with us. I may not be able to see the effect of everything He did,

but I know that He did big things.

     One year, as we were coming up to a disciple now, I got very sick, and I do mean very sick. At first I thought that I could just push through it. Get through the practices.  I didn't want to give it up, but I was in a pretty fair amount of pain. I can be a bit of a work horse, and a bit of a control freak when it comes to music if I'm not too careful, and at this particular time I may not have been being careful. We were only a day or two out from the gig, and as the sickness grew stronger I worried that I wouldn't even be able to do it just a little bit, but then I remembered something very important. I remembered that the place that I was in is where God had me.

     Skipping forward to the day of the gig. I can remember two other band mates becoming pretty sick over time. Now at this point we have three out of five band members feeling like death, but remembering that God called us to play this disciple now, and He wasn't going to let us down. We chose to trust. We did our practices, we fixed our slides, we got our lights set up, and we put our videos together. Once everything was done we had a little bit of time, so my bro, who was sick, and I went into the big church, that's what we called the main sanctuary, and I went to get rest on some of the chairs. I remember having a simple conversation with God about how I'm just going to trust that He was gonna have it under control, and then having a very short lived nap before hearing my bro say "Vince... it's time." 

    I got up, walked over to our youth building and watched the countdown timer. As the youth pastor got up to give announcements and then the lights went out. We walked on stage, and the keys began to play. 

   And all of the sudden it was gone. God had definitely empowered me that night, The Holy Spirit was upon us and working through us to lead a group of students in worship. This was indeed a miracle. That was honestly the first time that I truly recognized what was going on, that I can remember. I was sick, I followed where God would lead me, and I was healed and empowered to do what He had called me to do. Not to say that the Holy Spirit didn't have a  hand in the full blown process, because He most definitely did. This is just when I recognized. When I put down my control in the understanding that I'm desperate and can't do this on my own. I got to see Him move and recognize His movements. Not just in me, but in all of us on that stage... maybe one day I'll dig up the footage from this amazing night. It's a bit of a memorial stone for me.
   Here's what I learned through it all. God is faithful. He will call us to something and things will rise against us on our way. Sometimes those things can seem to pop out at what we perceive to be the worst time, but God is not shaken by them. His power is truly limitless and we will see Him bring us to victory as we look to Him. We will miss it if we choose to look away from Him. I also learned that I can't control everything, and that there comes a point where in my own heart I have to take a step back and say "Am I trying to do this on my own, or am I trusting that God is going to work through me?"
    Because I personally will try to move move mountains with my arms instead of my faith, if I'm not careful.

Lord keep my eyes fixed on You and Your glory, and keep my heart trusting in You.

I would encourage anyone reading this to go and check out the book of Joshua. Mainly for this particular topic of my life and what God has done, I'd say check out chapter 4!
DO EEEET!!!

This has been me talking about something that God has done in my life.

:)

There will be more to come.