I spent this past weekend playing music with some of my best friends. We we’re leading worship music at a retreat for around 300 people, and I was playing a drum box called the Cajon. Someone asked me that weekend if I was able to worship while I was playing.
I thought about it. Generally the answer is no. Generally the answer is I’m too concerned about doing something wrong. Generally I’m too worried about being off beat, or I’m so worried I am off beat that I lose focus on why we’re playing the songs in the first place.
And then I thought about it again. I thought about that question “Are you able to worship while you play?” The more I thought about that the more I realized in fact I was able to worship, but the worship looked different.
You see there are a hundred reasons I can think of why I wouldn’t want to be in front of people doing anything much less trying to keep rhythm for 300 people. There’s a reality to rhythm you’re either on beat or off beat. It’s cut and dry. It’s black and white, and people can tell. That clear-cut reality always worries me.
What if I mess up? What if everyone hears me mess up? What if people think I can’t do it? Or worse yet what if they’re right? Maybe I’m not good enough to do it? Maybe my failure to do it well will be a distraction?
Maybe I just shouldn’t do it. That last one carries a heavy load with it when it hits you. Maybe I just shouldn’t do it.
I realized those thoughts, those insecurities about failing, about people seeing me fail, about people thinking I’m a failure are thoughts that too often control us. They are thoughts that too often cause us to withdraw.
I decided in that moment worship was saying no to all of those questions.
But the more that I’ve thought about this idea the more I’ve realized a lot of life is like playing music in front of people. A lot of life dares people to not even try.
To simply quit before you look like a fool, before people realize you may not be the smartest, the most articulate, the best looking, or whatever it is you fear not being. These thoughts prey on people. They prey on people’s insecurity by slowly feeding their doubts until their doubts swallow anything their potential could muster in opposition.
All of these questions are empowered by insecurity. A fear that if we suck people will deem us not worth their time. It’s that fear that gives these thoughts power.
But life. True life.
Life that lives unafraid of those questions is a life fully realized. You see it’s clear to me the questions don’t stop. You get better at responding to them, better at realizing what they’re trying to do, but they never disappear.
So I realized that weekend, as I beat on a drum that my rhythm might at times not be right but what was truly wrong was to be so afraid of doing it, to be so afraid of failing once that I never took a chance to do it all. That I never fully entered the life that was meant for me.
C.S. Lewis sums this up in the Screwtape Letters, a book written from the point of view of the devil to a demon. In that book, the devil tells a demon to remember:
“There is nothng like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against the Enemy (God). He (God) wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”
What will happen if they do. There is an interesting aspect to our fear and anxiety. If we fear failure or suffer from paralyzing anxiety from that fear, we’re diminishing the Lord’s goodness and faithfulness.
We’re saying Lord I know you are good. I know you are all powerful. I know you work things for your glory, but this fear, this fear of attempting to do something, and the corresponding rejection that might come if I tried and failed well it’s just too much.
True worship is doing in reliance on Him.
I remember an interview with Adele shortly after she became a huge success. Adele suffers from huge stage fright but her answers to these questions seem to be getting at more than simple stage fright.
Adele: But it has gotten worse as I’m becoming more successful. My nerves. Just there’s a bit more pressure and people are expecting a lot from me.
Anderson Cooper: So what’s that fear?
Adele: That I’m not going to deliver. I’m not going to deliver. That I’m not going to—people aren’t going to enjoy it. They’re—they’re going to—that I’ll ruin their love for my songs by doing them live. I feel sick. I get a bit panicky.
AC: Have you ever thrown up?
Adele: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. A few times.
These questions, these questions of failure tempt us.
They tempt us into thinking our existence is so insignificant that it’s ok to simply live a life in constant aversion to potential failure.
That is a lie.
Your life is so significant that you must not be fearful to realize what you can do.
Your life is so significant that you must not allow anxiety to slow you.
The questions won’t stop; they are inherent to our nature, pre-programed into our existence, but true life occurs at the intersection of those questions and our actions.
You must press onward.