For most of my life I have felt that I was inadequate, incapable of doing anything awe-inspiring or really “big.” Even after becoming a Christian and getting saved I looked at who I was and the person I had been in the past and for me, it translated over into “how can the same person who did those things, made those mistakes, how can they be the same person who could produce good things now?” I’m sure it’s easy to see how this also affected my relationship with God. As a result of me limiting myself, I also in the process limited God and what He could do in my life. I thought that God couldn’t work through me, or if He did, only on a much smaller scale. However, this summer I was shown that God’s power does not diminish in my inadequacy and it was proven that His strength is made perfect in my weakness.

This summer I took a huge, blind leap out of my normal comfort zone and volunteered to sing and help lead worship with the Emmanuel College Conquest team as we toured around to different states performing mostly at youth camps. Now despite what most people would probably think, it was not the singing that was out of my comfort zone. What frightened me was the idea of being stuck in a van with eight people I didn’t really know and being away from my family for an entire month of my summer. However, I knew in my heart that Conquest was something God was calling me to do and so I nervously joined something that ended up being one of the most life-changing experiences I’ve had to date.

Leading worship this summer for Conquest was so much more than leading worship. It was truly a ministry that we were not there to put on a show or to hold up to other people’s expectations. We were there for the people we were serving and we were there to do whatever God called us to. Consequently, we were able to experience great things inside and outside of our services. This summer I was trusted with countless stories, confessions, and tragedies. I saw hesitant hands being raised in worship for the first time. I saw teenagers crying and broken at the altar and still somehow choosing to pray for one another instead of themselves. I saw youth desperate for clarity, for understanding, for peace searching out God for answers. I saw God move when we led worship and it has been the most humbling experience of my entire life.

However, despite seeing the evidence of God’s work all around me, I constantly questioned how it could be happening. How God was using me in spite of who I was and the background I had. How I had the capabilities to do the things I was doing even though I knew all of my inadequacies and shortcomings. It didn’t make sense to me and I sort of chalked it all up to another miracle of God and just kept moving because it seemed like that was all there was to do. There was no time to stop and try and figure it out in the middle of everything else that was continuing to happen. I’m pretty sure the kind of doubts and questions I had were far from unusual, though, as I’m sure that my team members found themselves asking similar questions. I say this because as our summer tour continued on we found ourselves with sort of a “theme.” That theme being 2nd Corinthians 12:9, which talks about Christ’s strength being made perfect in our weakness. We constantly found ourselves being pointed back to and reminded of this verse and the message that it carries for us. God does not care that we are weak, it does not matter to Him that we are imperfect, He is made even more perfect and strong through it. We relied more heavily on this truth as the tour continued, trusting that our exhaustion, frustration, and flaws were nothing God couldn’t handle. However, I still found myself looking around at all that God was doing at services and asking “why me, God? How could I be a part of everything that is going on right now?"

There is a live version of Elevation Worship’s “Evidence” that has their pastor, Steven Furtick, speaking in the beginning. In it, he proclaims that the church is not waiting for a move of God, that we are a move of God followed by an exclamation calling us to “move now!” This for me sheds a little more light what had happened this summer. God has already moved within me so much. He has taken me from death to life, He has taken my mourning and turned it into dancing, He has taken my weakness and made it His strength, and now it is my job to take this to others. “What happens on the mountain can’t stay on the mountain,” the good things the Lord has done for me shouldn’t and won’t end there. It is my job to share my experience with Christ with others and through that God continues to move. This summer I blindly moved forward and through that God was able to use me. It doesn’t matter if we don’t know exactly where we’re going when we feel like God is calling us to something. What matters is that we choose to move anyway, because there is always someone making the same transitions we’ve made, having to make the same decisions we’ve made, and it is up to us on whether or not they are making those decisions alone. The question I ask myself now is no longer “why would God use me?” because it is not about me. It’s not about who I’ve been or even who I am now, it’s about what has been done for me by God and what He deserves, and He deserves every part of us.

When I made the decision to be a part of Conquest this year I didn’t realize just how much God was going to use this experience to change me and my understanding of Him. I have realized that my insecurities and doubts are irrelevant in the presence of a secure and powerful God. I know now that it doesn’t matter where or who I’ve been in the past, what matters is what I choose to do in the now. This summer I chose to be a move of God before I was even able to recognize that that was what I was doing and it was incredible. So, I want to challenge you all to do the same. Move forward, even if it is blindly into the unknown. Don’t wait for a move of God, be a move of God.