Praise and Worship Delight

It has only been a little over a year since I was formally tasked to be a songleader. It was an amazing ride as I personally witness how God works in wonderful ways. All I can say is that God is amazingly wonderful! Up until now, I am in awe at the Lord’s working. It was not without problems, but it is through those little moments of seeing our shortcomings and limitations that we get to see how BIG our God is, how HE is in control and how GOD can work in wondrous ways in our hearts and the hearts of the congregation.

Saturday morning (October 15), I was on my way to our P&W rehearsal when I received a text message that our keyboardist would not be able to make it due to sickness. Panic was somehow creeping in, who’s going to be our keyboardist? Kuya Roel can’t make it! Ate Ann was out-of-town to celebrate their anniversary, Ryan was in Marikina while Jill was playing for the youth worship service. I was out of options. I was saying to myself that maybe I could try playing the keyboards this time, but I was not really that good enough to play and songlead at the same time, hehe! The problem did not end there, I was with a new team. My usual bassist, Revin, cannot make it due to a retreat he had to attend in their university. My brother Leo, my lead guitarist, was still on his way back from his Sydney flight that Saturday. Nevertheless, I was provided with a newbie bassist (kuya G) and rhythm guitarist (kuya R). I’m solved with that… but I was already foreseeing a probable problem with how I could work with the band dynamics since Leo was not present and our musical director/keyboardist, kuya roel was sick. You see, with our team, it was usually Leo who takes care of the band dynamics while I take care of the voices of the back-up singers. It used to be a lot easier working with the same team since you already knew how to work with each other, so with the new ones, I knew we had to adjust somehow. The only one who was present there from our original team was Dan, our usual drummer, to whom I was really grateful. In the absence of Leo and Kuya Roel, Dan stood up and led the band.

Backtracking a bit, when I got to the church, only the drummer and bassist were present and I had only three back-up singers at that time (Joanne, MJ and Apol). I breathed in and out, calmed myself and prayed. I’ve been in this situation before and the Lord never fails to take care of us. We went with our usual study of God’s word before the rehearsal. And again, we were reminded that God is in control. Each of the team members had their little words of encouragements. This ministry is God’s work and the Lord will never leave us, that we could still work together and that our great musical director is no other else but God Himself. MJ reminded us that it is through moments like these that our faith is being stretched so that we would just look onto God alone and not on the skills of the musicians. Joanne seconded that we are serving God and it is during these times that we should all the more depend on God. Refreshed and revived, we went on stage, with our hearts stirred up to play and sing for the Lord. Oh, by the way, when we were about to start the rehearsal, Deacon Bobby arrived and we all shouted hurray. He said that Ate Ann texted him to be our keyboardist. Later on, some more back-up singers got there as well. I got a new tenor in the team, woohoo, welcome EJ!

It was not easy. Looking back, it was really chaotic, haha! We can’t even get pass through the introduction of one Lakewood song, hahaha! There were other some technical problems as well, our sound tech/engineer was also absent so we were having trouble with the sound of the microphones and the mix of the sounds. Whew! Oh yeah, and did I tell you, we were not provided with the songsheets because the one who’s supposed to prepare them was absent as well. See… it was not really our day. I had to search for the chords and lyrics of the songs myself. Huhu. But at the end of this day, we had fun learning and serving God.
I think, more than anything else, the hearts of the team members encouraged me a lot. I knew they were there to serve God alone, to have only ONE audience—God Himself. I had peace, not because we were good (you should have heard us, how awful we were in the rehearsal, hehe!), we were not as skilled as the others, but I see in my team a heart whose passion and goal is to delight in our King. I knew it would be God helping us play and sing for His glory.
Come Sunday morning, Leo finally got to play with us. Ate Ann also went early in the morning to rehearse with us as second keyboardist. The early morning rehearsal was still a bit chaotic, I must say, hehe! This time, Dan was late, and we had to go through the line-up without the drum beats, imagine that! Hehe! Then came a time when we had to bow down in prayer before we go up the stage for the praise and worship. Each was sincerely praying for each other. We walked up the stage and when the beat started, I can only find myself amazed at the sound we were making. It was heavenly. It was glorious! And I find myself praising and worshipping God with all of my heart. I knew this was all God’s working. I felt ashamed at how I doubted Him at first, because if I would just recall what happened in that Praise & Worship, it was just amazing! Words are not enough to describe it. The band is finally working together, the harmony of voices was there and the Holy Spirit was working wonderfully. I can only stand amazed! At the end of the service, one texted me, she said that a lot of people cried during the service because they were touched by the songs. Some people also approached me and praised God for the wonderful P&W. I replied praising God alone for He was the one responsible for all that happened. We knew how we were by ourselves, it was really messy, hehe, but God did transform all of us for His glory.

I knew I haven’t been blogging for quite some time now. Sayang nga e, there have been a lot of milestones in my life which I haven’t shared through blogging (though I have been faithful in storing it in my journal). But I get to be really amazed at God’s working that I can’t stop myself from just sharing moments like this. October 16 was a day never to forget, it was the day our faith was stretched and our dependence on God was reinforced. There is really no other response but WORSHIP!