My little testimony time in church

Would you agree that God has a sense of humor?  I believe He does!  Last Sunday, May 8, Mother's Day was my last Sunday teaching K-5 Sunday School.  What a relief!  I'm all done!  After 3 years of team teaching 40-50 kids every month, I'm hanging up my SS hat and focusing on my Ladies Bible Study ministry and MY FAMILY.  Sundays have been so hectic we were even taking two cars each week to accommodate the kids so they wouldn't have to last from 9am til 12:30.

I was so excited to begin a new SS class of my own (Kay Arthur inductive study on Esther) and just enjoy service each Sunday and nursery duty from time to time...but God had other plans and first thing Tuesday morning I got a call from Pastor Joe asking me to partake in a sharing time during his sermon this week!  I had to put together a little something on why I enjoy singing/praising God.  We've been studying through the book of Samuel all on the life of David.  Pastor Joe had five points and five people chosen to share.  The premise was if I am to be a man/woman after God's own heart I must:

1. I must choose that course of action. (meaning live a life of obedience...obeying God is a choice)--Marcos
2. I must actively sing God's praises--Kristi (me)
3. I must love the Lord and His Word--Kim D.
4. I must allow the Lord and His people to reprove and refine me.--Matt C.
5. I must insure that my vertical focus overshadows my horizontal focus--Tracy

 It was actually pretty neat to hear other people share how God is working in their lives.  I really enjoyed the other testimonies...but I was so nervous all week and I couldn't put my finger on why I felt so inadequate to share, I even asked Pastor Joe wouldn't he like to choose someone from the worship team?

But he replied, no, I've chosen you specifically.  And it was then that I felt God saying, "Kristi, you may be done with SS teaching, but I will always be giving you "little assignments" to keep you on your toes and relying on me!  Stay faithful and be yourself."  It wasn't until Thursday when I shared with Pastor Joe what I would be saying through email that I was able to relax a bit.  I mean honestly I'd be speaking for maybe 2 minutes (but in front of 400 people!) what was I so nervous about, I like public speaking.  I felt maybe I was being a bit attacked by you know who, and I wasn't going to let that happen.  So I pushed through and finally at 11:45 pm on Saturday evening I went to bed...and Sunday morning, this is what I shared...

My favorite musical is The Sound of Music.  The scene where Maria is happily spinning on those luscious green hilltops with her arms stretched wide open is the kind of life I want to live!  Thankful to God to be alive and singing His praises with every breath and chance I get.  

 I’m realizing that the more things I can be thankful for and to praise God for the less my mind is allowed to wander in the negative zone.  He’s the reason I sing, He’s the reason I can lift my hands in praise, or wear a smile.  It’s because of what He’s done for me in my life, and how he gives me undeserved grace, love, mercy and kindness when I’m such a sinner!

Singing praises and worshiping God with my words , and with my life is important to me because that is my gift to Him.  It’s being obedient. I’m happy to do it! I’m trusting in His big picture for my life and not the narrow focus that I can physically see.  I can worship God because He is always worthy of my praise!

As a parent I’m learning to praise God in all situations not only to model that behavior for Julia and Mark but to show them that everything in life won’t be perfect but God will always faithful.

In Psalms you can clearly see David’s heart and his honesty with God.  They had an awesome relationship.  David would start out by telling God how he was scared or struggling and how overwhelmed at the situation he was and by the end of the Psalm he was able to let go and cling to God’s promises, knowing that God would continue to be faithful, knowing that God had a plan, and knowing he could rejoice in just being a child of the King.

C.S. Lewis - "The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in
God which made David dance."

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God thank you for keeping me on my toes each day because it really keeps me on my knees!  I love serving you!  I'm thankful I had this opportunity to share in church. 

I would have liked to have said that my favorite worship experience so far was when John and I traveled to Oxford to study under Ravi Zacharias.  The first summer we attended we stayed in Keble Hall and we would worship every morning in a cathedral on campus.  The building was so old and so beautiful and the acoustics were perfect.  Every time we sang as a group, with our fellow Christian brothers and sisters, Black, White, Asian, accents and all it sounded absolutely beautiful, and both John and I turned to each other the first day and said, "That's what singing in heaven will be like....race and language won't matter, just pure hearts in harmony worshiping our King."