It is amazing how the enemy likes to sneak into our lives
and cause chaos during moments are special and fleeting. It dawned on me over the Christmas holiday.
I was playing a worship set for our Christmas Eve service at
church, and the entire practice session was chaotic for me. I didn’t have the sheet music, so I was
running around trying to get it. When I
couldn’t find it, I grabbed one of the copies and ran to the printing room.
As I was on stage getting ready to play, I noticed that half
of the songs were not in the packet that I grabbed and copied. I managed to find some of them laying around mixed in with previous sets, but one of
the last songs was not there. So as we
started playing the last song, I was able to get a glimpse of the notes as the
singers were singing, but then inadvertently shifted the music sheet around making it
impossible for me to see!!
I got annoyed because I wanted to play but I couldn’t do
it, so I sat down. Right as I was starting to get
annoyed… it dawned on me. I was exactly
where Satan wanted me to be. I was annoyed and
my focus was taken off of where it should have been: Christ and the experience
of helping people connect with him through worship. I was in the process of getting neutralized.
Needless to say, I lightened up shortly after. But then my thoughts drifted… what about how
we get so bent out of shape over not buying the perfect gift (or receiving the
perfect gift)? Or how we bust our butts
to make a turkey dinner, and by the time the dinner is done we are so stressed
out that no one wants to be around us?... this is Satan doing what Satan does…
stealing our joy, killing our mood, and destroying relationships. (John 10:10- thief comes only to steal and
kill and destroy).
I went to one Christmas Eve dinner and one Christmas Day
dinner this year. The thing that
impressed me was that it was very low stress.
Both hosts told me that they wanted to keep it low key because they did not want the added stress. I smiled in light of what I noticed earlier,
and I found that we had a low stress time and it allowed me to focus on the
reason for the season… God, family, friends, etc.
Food for thought: pay
attention to how often those stressors happen and where they happen. I am not saying that he took my song sheets
or anything like that, but instead he saw an opportunity to frustrate me an
capitalized on it. In addition to that,
think about the repercussions to allowing your day/night being ruined by those
incidents that occur.
