So this one I rambled more that usual. Sorry?

I have been challenged by plagues of doubt and a lack of confidence my entire life. I know you ask yourself how this is so with my incredible body, harmonic and melodious voice, and of course my immense amount of friends. I just checked on facebook and it appears that I now have 1,345 friends and I am positive that anyone of those individuals would come to me at any moment of distress. Now, before those of you who are not familiar with my sarcasm let me stop before you cast your judgment on me! (I apologize for always having these ridiculous rambling sessions on here by the way. I write like I think, which doesn’t necessarily conform to what your typical blog holds!) Anyways, back to the initial statement. I have lived the bulk of my life attempting to please everyone around me and gain validation by doing things that I know will be acceptable to them. Because of this I have gained an incredible ability to know what is expected of me from people before I have a relationship with them, but on the opposite side of the spectrum, I now have no confidence as to who I am. I have become who everyone has wanted me to be and I used the passage of scripture in 1 Corinthians 9 to rationalize this.

Before you comment on my ignorance let me beat you to the punch…I’m partially an idiot. I often reflect on how my confidence should be placed in God. I daily realize that my every need can be met in God. I know that God is faithful. I know that I should not be concerned with the thoughts of others. I know all of this. But knowing and believing are two vastly different principles. I have come to a point in my life where I have had to admit that I do not believe. And before you all start booking flights to South Africa with your holy water to drown out all my unbelief let me finish! I don’t want to step on any toes here, but I imagine I am not the only one here either who struggles with not believing. It is simple. If we did believe what we know then we wouldn’t be concerned our different standards of measurement in the Church or our spiritual lives, but we would be blown away by the faithfulness of God. So often we write off the sections of scripture that speak about God ‘moving mountains’ or we see how Jesus performed miracles and we leave it there. The same God who moved those mountains and raised the dead is the same God we sing to on Sunday mornings and often forget by Monday morning. I know I am not the only one who doesn’t fully believe. If I was then I would be hearing story after story of the faithfulness of the One we serve. I want to be so crazy and foolish as to believe that God is capable of physically moving a mountain. I want to be so dumb as to believe that God can change the district of Manenberg from the drug and gang infested land to a place of love. God how I desire that stupidity associated with the truth that you could raise my grandmother or grandfather or high school friend from the grave and restore them if it were to be in accordance with your will.

And from there stems my lack of confidence in myself. I have spent my life searching for something to put my confidence in and I have come up empty. To put my confidence in God seems foolish, even in the church today. And because of this it has begun to permeate into the smaller areas of my life. I have this overwhelming sense of inadequacy everyday. I am aware that a bit of this feeling is healthy to keep one from becoming prideful, but I have far surpassed this healthy spirit of meekness. I doubt every ability that God has blessed me with. But it’s those moments that I latch on to what God has called me to and it is in those moments that I am confident of one truth only. I am loved by the Father.

I fear that my thoughts and rants may seem like rubbish and disorienting to you, but this is flowing perfectly to me. I want to make the disclaimer that I am not writing off the church by any means! I realize that I am making generalizations here. I am also not writing from some spiritual ‘high’ because I am in another country. It didn’t take me traveling to Africa to realize my lack of confidence in God. Enough with the apologetics. I am reminded of the verses you see written above on the header. I have prayed these verses for some time now, but I am constantly drawn to the first verse. …his praise will always be on my lips…I may doubt my own ability, (good!), but when I realize what my God is capable of then the natural result is unending praise! The week before I came over here we sang a hymn that I was not familiar with. This could be a result of my charismatic lifestyle of worship that has almost gotten me disowned by my parents because I like a nice drumbeat and the words on the screen, not a book! Okay, another line of sarcasm there, I apologize! Anyways, the hymn is called There is a Fountain. I won’t try and add my thoughts to this declaration of hope, but I want to point out a few things. I want you to notice the succession of hope strung through each stanza, and the last two stanzas are what have encouraged me. And this is beside any point that I am trying to convey, (you are probably used to that by now!), but the first verse is disturbing! Has anyone ever stopped to think about what we are singing? I don’t know many other genres that sing of fountains filled with blood, yet we sing it so loudly and sometimes a little off-pitch (Carroll Griffin) as if it were our life theme. Maybe that’s because we know it should be…deep down.

There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,

And sinners plunged beneath that flood


Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see


That fountain in His day;

And there have I, though vile as he,

Washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood


Shall never lose its pow’r,

Till all the ransomed church of God


Are safe, to sin no more.

E’er since by faith I saw the stream


Thy flowing wounds supply,

Redeeming love has been my theme,

And shall be till I die.

When this poor, lisping, stamm’ring tongue


Lies silent in the grave,

Then in a nobler, sweeter song,

I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save.

God,

I may never fill the pages of a book with deep insights, I may never coin a song with eloquent words, I may never be able to paint pictures of your love, but I will never cease to let your praise be on my lips.

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. I’m not confident of much, but you can take that to the bank.

Well, maybe not the bank. They seem to be struggling as of late. Maybe just put it in a jar and bury it. That last line was unnecessary. I don’t know why I am leaving it. Sometimes I dislike myself…this is one of those times!

Sorry for the long post! This always serves as a good outlet for the things I am thinking about. There is so much more, but this has been on my heart for a while. Maybe one day soon I will give you a typical blog post informing you of what I am doing each day like I am probably supposed to be doing!