The God of Gideon

[Realization #3: Christianity is bigger than me. Faith is bigger than Christianity. God is bigger than faith.]

(Yes, I know. This was supposed to be posted a long time ago.)

Let’s jump right in.

I’m in worship at training camp, right? Everyone is singing passionately, there are people off to the sides dancing gracefully, jumping up and down, crying, lying prostrate on the cool floor. Their hearts are on fire. People are cheering and singing and the worship team has found themselves stuck on the bridge of the song as people sing it with deeper passion every round.

A new experience for me. I loved seeing other people worship so ferociously, but there I was with my hands in my pockets wondering how in the world I would ever reach such a point of passion. 

Don’t get me wrong– I adore worship. If you’ve read all three realizations from camp you might conclude that I find music terrifying. I definitely don’t. I love worship. I love music. I become hyper fixated on its beauty. But this time, it wasn’t the technicality behind the worship or how the songs were being led. Something felt off. 

And, to be completely honest, early on into the week, I thought to myself, ‘oh my gosh. Am I joining a cult?’

Fast forward to the end of the week where we sign a paper signifying our commitment to the World Race. 

‘This is it. I really am joining a cult. Well, at least it’s a cult where we’re nice to people.’ 

The whole week was an experience. One full of realizations. And here’s what I realized. 

1. This belief of “Christianity” is much bigger than my personal preference. 

It’s a religion that holds beliefs, debates within itself about those beliefs, and passionately yearns to follow those beliefs. 

Sitting in worship, I found myself surrounded with people whose way of worship was not my own. Which partly excites me, because I love broadening my perspective, but partly worries me, simply because I wasn’t used to this form of worship. Everything that they were saying was so different to me. Their love and my love was the same love, but expressed so differently. It was alarming from time to time. Their passion took me aback. 

We all believe in the same thing. Christians aren’t all the same. If we were, we’d be really boring. Some of us need liturgy. Others of us need to dance. Some of us halfway around the world use loud rhythms and harmonious chants to worship. Others use one single melody with nothing but the human voice. Some of us believe that child baptisms are acceptable. Others would disagree. Some people think that the earth is old. Others would say the earth is young. Regardless of the political side of religion, Christians still have a call to love and serve and believe in God and we have a big ole book full of ways that the Lord calls us all to serve. 

Seeing everyone worship in different ways wasn’t something bad. It was just different. Something I had never quite experienced before. The atmosphere was different. My perception and exposure to a certain side of Christianity did not mean that others were wrong if they were different. Not that I ever thought that dancing was theologically incorrect, but my specific way of connecting with the Lord was not the way everyone else did it. And I liked that. 

2. Faith is bigger than Christianity. 

Everyone has– well, everyone wants– faith in something. It’s not just Christians. Different religions hold to different gods, different leaders, nature or spirits, or themselves. Christians are not the only ones who hold to a faith. Everyone does. Our mission… the whole point of leaving and taking on serving for a whole year was to provide the hopeless with faith. People will cling to anything in a time of desperation. We would meet people who would hold different faiths than us. We would meet people who would be searching for a god. We were meant to be a people full of faith that enveloped our whole being. We didn’t have to be in seminary or have studied the Scriptures as heavily as the Pharisees of old. (Not to say that isn’t important. We are to be ready in and out of season. We should hide the Word of God in our hearts. Active faith requires action.) But our faith that God could use us in ways we never expected was what we needed. The people at this training camp had raised our hands in faith and were allowing for the Father to use us for His glory. Pretty cool that we don’t have to have all the answers in order to help serve our God. Although it definitely does help.

3. God is bigger than our faith.

I thought that once God had shown a certain amount of faithfulness to you, doubt wasn’t a thing anymore.

Weird how in a place full of people proclaiming his name, that was the moment I began to doubt.

The songs were unknown. The feeling was unknown. The people around me were unknown. There didn’t seem to be anything to cling to.

Who were these people praising? What were they saying about Him? I believed in the same thing? ‘Is that how they see God? I mean, it is theologically correct. I just had never thought about it like that.’ He had shown every single one of these people so much love and comfort and grace and faithfulness that they were singing everything that the screen read? 

Not to be a skeptic, but… well, no; actually yes– to be a skeptic. I was being very skeptical. 

Here’s the other thing about mainstream music: all the chords are the same. I could be thinking of an Ed Sheeran song and it would happen to fit wonderfully with Chris Tomlin. So this whole first evening of worship, I’m humming a song to myself when I think that the worship lead is about to begin with the same lyrics. Well, I was wrong 100% of the time. They were never the song I had in mind. And despite the loud music in front of me, this song was the only thing I was worshiping. ‘You are worthy of it all,’ I would whisper. 

But they never played it. 

This was discouraging, since I love singing songs I know. And this moment in time, where God seemed so different than how I knew him, I began questioning so much. 

‘Look, I know God is real. But is this the same God? Are they praising someone different? Is God real? Why are we all here? Who are we singing to? Why don’t I know any of these songs?’

All I wanted was to praise God’s worthiness alongside other people… but I didn’t know these songs. And for some reason that really threw me. 

‘Look, I know this is silly. But if you’re real, this song is going to play. Worthy of It All will play and I’ll know you’re real.’

Well. The night continued on. Nothing changed. Same songs. All different. And granted, am I writing this blog more than a month after training camp? Yes. So do I remember the exact time or day of this? No. But, it happened, and not on the same day, and that’s what matters. 

The last song of the night, and everyone is gathered around the stage. Evan, upstage playing guitar, begins playing a familiar riff. And I realized that this next song is the one I’ve been hoping to hear. As the people begin to sing the beginning lines, I stand there and begin to tear up. He really was worthy. 

‘Oh thank goodness- God is real. You’re real. Omg thank you so much I can’t believe it.’

As much as I wanted to sing the one song that I knew, I choked up. The overwhelming realization that God not only existed, but heard me and nudged my doubts aside, was a lot to take in for a moment. 

All of that to say, God didn’t have to do that. My lack of faith doesn’t suddenly prove that God doesn’t exist. God is not reliant on my faith. God is bigger than my beliefs, and he doesn’t have to bow to me because he’s so insecure he’ll do whatever it takes to keep me around. God didn’t have to help Gideon keep the ground dry and the fleece wet. But sometimes he gives us moments to help see Himself. At that moment, I realized, for a third time that week, that this journey I was about to embark upon was so much bigger than myself. God doesn’t need me to go out and proclaim his name. He could do that all by himself if he wanted to. But we are his vessels. We are called to respond to his voice and follow him whole-heartedly. God doesn’t need our acknowledgement of Him to continue existing. He doesn’t need us at all. But He wants us. And that, my friends, is a grand picture. 

And you wanna know what’s even cooler? The last evening of worship, after Squad Wars and baptisms, everyone gathered into the large room to dance and sing into the night. We laughed, we cried, we sang, we sang so much we started screeching, we cheered, we clapped, we jumped up and down and we spent hours in God’s presence. And it was absolutely insane. At the end of the night, Evan hops off the stage and places himself in the middle of the room. We surround him, his guitar, and the drummer next to him. And you know what we sang to close? 

Worthy of It All.

“I’m here,” He said. 

Well. Praise God for that.

That’s all, folks. All three realizations from training camp. If you haven’t read the other two I encourage you to do so. Thank you all for your continuous support! As of tonight, I only need sixty dollars to be fully funded (12/7/21), and while I could easily provide myself with $60, I’m waiting to see what the Lord will do. INSANE, ISN’T IT?

Blessings.