Here are some of David Willersdorf's latest thoughts and musings on life and how to get the most out of it. You can subscribe to David's blog and get updated whenever he posts a new thought.
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God Likes You
Photograph by Milan Jurek.
If you don't know it by now, God likes you. Even if you're like me, with failings and flaws, God has gone a long way to make sure you can walk in His like for you.
For so many years, I have tried to win God's like. I made sure that I was ticking all the spiritual boxes. I read the Bible, went to Church, and many other things that would prove my spiritual mettle. Sure it was exhausting, but surely God must like me if I'm doing all that stuff for Him!
Trying to gain approval from God through works is like being invited to a feast with a king and demanding to wash the dishes instead of enjoying the king's feast. While you're out in the kitchen washing dishes, the king is wondering why he is missing out on your company.
Is reading the Bible and going to Church wrong? No! These things can be super-helpful in finding your identity within God's like for you. Sometimes we can forget what God's like for us looks like. Reading the Bible and being a part of Church should remind us of God's like for us and how we can share His like for others.
But if you are doing things to get God's like, then God misses out on walking with you in life, and you miss out by being exhausted trying to get something you already have.
Jesus - I thank you so much for helping me find out how much I mean to you by giving Your life for me and inviting me to be a part of Your plans. When I do things, I want them to be things that celebrate what You have already given me as an overflow of love. And I want to do the things that You are doing.
It Does Pay to Enrich Your Word Power
Photograph by Marc Garrido i Puig.
"For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken."
Matthew 12:34-36 (NIV)
When God speaks, eternal destinies are created. I believe that He made similar qualities in men and women. Each of us has the ability to speak. We differ from every other created thing on earth: God gave man the power of articulated words. What you say can also mould the lifetimes of others.
Every word you say is a seed. It will grow and produce fruit in the life of those who listen. It will either nourish or choke the life out of the person. "But they're just being too sensitive!" you may say. Our sensitivity is also our ability to hear and feel God. Shut that down and you will soon become jaded and cynical. If you are not sensitive, you are without sense!
At the root of words that tear down is envy. Some people cannot find joy in the joy of others. Unless it is happening to them, they want to rob others of the joy too.
Words are also contagious. How your parents spoke to you will generally be how you speak and also how your children will speak. A harsh word to someone may cause him or her to set in motion generations of destructive words. You may rob God of someone of great potential, all because you were threatened by his or her success.
The flip side is that you may be used by God to build someone into a mighty man or woman in life. You may even stop a suicide without realising it. You could see the power of generational curses lifted because you helped someone shake free of behavioural patterns with a positive word. So what's it going to be? Which word will you use? In a real way, God can use you powerfully through a positive word.
Inconvenience
Photograph by "eyestar".
"While he was preaching God’s word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralysed man on a mat. They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus."
Mark 2:2-4 (NLT)
I have read this passage a number of times. It was only when I was listening to a good friend preach on this passage that I really took notice of the ramifications to our contemporary services that come from this story.
As Jesus is preaching to a packed house (literally), He is interrupted by falling debris and as the dust settles, a crippled man is lowered right at His feet from a hole in the roof! With a word or two, Jesus speaks and the man leaps to his feet, completely healed.
How would I react if the situation happened today? Would I see it as a divine ministry opportunity or would I be annoyed? Would I perceive a miracle in the making, or would I be calling the police?
Inconvenience is most often God knocking on the door of our agenda.
As a worship leader, I pour over song lists and Bible Passages. I ask God what words He wants me to share. What song arrangements I should choose. I like to prepare. And yet God wants me to place my carefully-laid plans upon His altar.
Don't get me wrong - God likes good stewardship. But He loves children who follow His loving plans above their own.
At best my plans can see people spiritually enriched. But God's plans change lives forever.
This passage shows us that life-changing moments can happen through inconvenient means.
Building a Worship Team
Photograph by B S K.
I was recently asked to write a brief outline of how to grow your worship team. It got me thinking about how we often want to build something, and yet we don't know what we want to see reproduced. Growth = Reproduction. Growing a team is like cells forming a body. If we start without an identity, we will just reproduce a tumour. Tumour growth is unhealthy and it doesn't fit the pattern of a healthy body.
It's when we know what God wants to do that we can build a team with Him that will have the right expectation (and hopefully a huge expectation at that) of what God wants to do. Below is what I ended up with.
// Know Your Identity
Ask God about the identity He wants to build in each service. As someone once said, "If you aim for nothing you'll hit it every time." If there is no clear identity, people will be confused about their involvement. When you build around an identity or culture it is easy to target your song lists, your worship team and even the dress code at the identity God has given for each particular service.
// Communicate the Vision
Once you have a vision, clearly and simply communicate it. That way people will gravitate to the ministry with the right expectation and behaviour in mind. It's a lot easier to build the right expectation than to deal with a broken expectation. Knowing the vision sets people free from wrong expectations.
// Build the Core
Don't worry about attracting large numbers of musicians to begin with. Look for a core team who have grabbed the vision and who have the attitude that you want to see reproduced. Keep communicating the vision.
// Empower Others
Empower people in your team who have the right attitude and who are good at their craft. If someone is doing well, encourage them to find other people that they can teach, mentor and encourage. That way the ministry will start to grow exponentially.
// Create a Fail-Safe Environment
Build a time where people can "have a go" without recrimination. For instance, instead of having someone to lead worship for the first time at a packed Sunday morning service, get them to lead worship at a rehearsal night. That way they can fail or succeed without condemnation. Often we all get blessed and it also encourages others to have a go, ultimately building your team.
Vision, Expectation, Core and Communication are the keys to growing a great team.
The Awe of Heaven
Photograph by Matthew Bowden.
"All of the heavens in awe at Your mercy..."
From the song, "All You Have Given," by David Willersdorf
"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him."
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NLT)
God often does things that no mind in heaven or earth could prepare for. His love, mercy and wisdom lead Him to do things that no one could contemplate or imagine ahead of time.
Jesus stepped out of the glory of heaven and took on the form of a human being (Philippians 2:7). Can you imagine what would have been happening amongst the ranks of heaven at that point? Apart from the Trinity, no one could possibly have foreseen what Jesus had intended to do. That "yet while we were sinners, Jesus died for us!" (Romans 5:8).
No one could have planned for or anticipated what Jesus did.
The enemy could not grasp what Jesus' heart was leading Him to do. Jesus was going to rescue humanity! And even as He hung dead on the cross, the truth had not been understood (Colossians 2:15). It was only as the tomb lay empty that the realisation began to dawn - Jesus had become the risen sacrifice that no one had expected.
I believe that no one can anticipate what great deeds God will continue to do on your behalf (1 Corinthians 2:9). No one can predict the fullness of what is heading your way from God's heart. His love and wisdom always lead Him to lavish us in ways that no one could prepare for. You are the object of His love!
Gratitude
Photograph by Roger Kirby.
"I thank You, I thank You, Oh Lord I praise You..."
From the song, "All You Have Given," by David Willersdorf
"Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name."
PSALM 100:4 (NLT)
Genuine thanksgiving always leads to praise. If you are in a place in your life where you just cannot bring yourself to praise God, thanksgiving is the key. It is not the formula to entering the courts of God - Jesus is the only Way we can enter God's courts. But thanksgiving is the appetiser to get our hearts ready for the feast. It reminds us that there is a feast. Looking at what God has done always leads us to look to God for what He will do.
All of the Christian life is a response. We love because God first loved us. We praise God because He has revealed something of Himself to us for us to praise Him. We don't praise God to get anything; we praise God because He has already given. In this case, we praise God because of His greatest gift - that of the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ on our behalf. The sin that we were tarred with was lifted up on Jesus' shoulders. And we now stand free to praise God with untainted lips as our response to His great mercy.
If you are finding praise difficult, just let your mind wander back to the last good thing you can remember God doing in your life (I'm sure we can all find something!). Let this be your meditation, and out of thanking God it won't be long before you find the treasure of His praise in your heart.
The Mighty River
Photograph by Arsel Özgürdal.
"...let the river flow through the temple gates..."
From the song, "Such a Day," by David Willersdorf
"Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing."
Ezekiel 47:12 (NIV)
Out of the temple of the Living God flows the River of Life. It is described as bringing life wherever it goes. Salt water becomes fresh, fish and creatures live in abundance and even the trees that line its banks flourish and give great harvests. The river flows from the sanctuary of the Temple of the Living God.
There is another river and another temple spoken of in God's Word. This temple is made in every man and woman that follows Christ, and is called the Temple of the Holy Spirit. A river flows from this temple also. It flows from the concentrated abundance of the temple out into the lives of others.
The river is the same - God flowing in life from the temple to the world. The temple can vary, however. Not all of us see a mighty outpouring of life from the temple of our hearts into the communities and worlds we are a part of.
Some of us build our own pipelines, hoping that we can influence others by our cleverness and goodness, and yet people still walk away from us thirsty and dissatisfied. Others of us are more like putrid dams than free-flowing rivers. And others are like a vague wetness coming from cobwebbed corridors - a temple long forgotten.
Imagine every Believer being a holy and revived temple of the Living God; surrendered to the heartbeat of God beating here on earth in us. No carefully laid pipelines of our own making; just a wild torrent pouring out unreservedly into the world. Our words would be secondary to our lives, full of life and fertility.
Life is a Travelator
Photograph by Mike Wagner.
"Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before You. Each man's life is but a breath."
Psalm 39:4-5
Have you ever been asleep in the back seat of a car? Although you're not actively doing anything, you are still in motion from one place to another. So too it is with life: from birth to the end of life, you are in motion from one point to another. Whether you choose to acknowledge this or not, it does not matter. Like gravity, it is one of the unchanging laws of life: you are born; you live; you die.
We need to live in that constant state of awareness. I watched a movie about time travel where the character went back in time to alter a little decision he had made. The changes to the future consequences of that little decision were staggering. What decisions do you put aside? What might seem important today - work, money, social standing - will seem irrelevant in years to come. The little decisions like whether to withhold a harsh word, to tell someone you love them or to choose to honour God in a decision at work will have active and accumulative consequences that you cannot see.
So how can we live, knowing that time is rushing us from birth to death and that our little decisions can have vast, unforseen consequences in our life and the world around us? There is only one way. We must live each day with God, our Creator. As well as knowing how long we have to live on earth, God also can see the ramifications of each decision we make. He can turn things around for good. He can encourage us to find the path we were designed for. All we have to do is to walk daily with Him, the Author of Life.
Faith II
Photograph by Karen Hampson.
A while back I was reading Hebrews 11. It talks about faith. If you're like me, you might expect faith to be like Harrison Ford stepping onto thin air in Indiana Jones III. He closes his eyes, takes a step and later realises that he is now walking on a carefully camouflaged solid rock bridge. He worked himself up into some sort of feeling and acted on it.
In reality I'm finding that real faith is simply relying on God doing what He says He will do because He is who He says He is. The faith part is placing yourself in a position where either God will move, or you will fall flat on your face. It's not as much stepping into the unknown - it's stepping into what you know about God.
That while back when I was reading Hebrews 11, I began a long journey to producing my next worship DVD and CD. At the time I sensed God say to "go for it." Since then there have been obstacles and victories. In some things I've fallen over, in others God has held me on my feet. I think the journey is doing me much more good than the completion of any album!
The only thing separating us from the people in Hebrews 11 is whether we jump out when we recognise God's call. I can't wait to hear God's chuckle when we finally learn through faith how big and loving He is!
Moving
Photograph by Pascal Thauvin.
I have a love-hate relationship with moving house. On the one hand, there is the flurry of activity - packing boxes, trying to work out how to transport chairs without turning them into toothpicks and the inevitable strained muscles that only get used moving house.
Yet on the other side of the coin, I've found boxes that have been forgotten for years that were packed a few houses ago.
A cordless telephone? Wow! When did I buy that? And why have I been using an inferior telephone all this time? And where did this Venetian Colander come from?
The most rewarding feeling came when I finally transported our washing machine to the new house, after a few weeks of not having any washing machine. There's nothing like the feeling of having clean clothes.
Learning to Wait
Photograph by Matthew Bowden.
"I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.'"
Lamentations 3:24
Often in life, we can be distracted by what is going on in the lives of others at the expense of what God can be doing in ours. They have the blessing that we want now. They may even tell us that we must have the same right away.
Be careful of asking for something just because someone else has it. God has you on His own path for you. His work in you is not His work in another. Choose to throw your lot in with God and you will go the quicker route to His purpose.
If you can confess, "The Lord is my portion," then the portion of others will only bring out joy in your life. Covet the portion of someone else and you'll be trapped in the snare of jealousy. Each of us encounters times when we are in a still place with God. These are times of preparation - God settling our spirits. These are the times of waiting.
I once wrote a song titled, 'To Wait On You'. When writing it, I did not realise at the time that God would so powerfully answer the prayer that I uttered in its words.
"There's rest for my soul, There's time for Your winds to blow, To listen as You speak There's all the time for this... To wait on You, to wait on You, to wait on You, to wait on You..."
From the song, "To Wait on You," by David Willersdorf
Waiting for God means that something exciting is right around the corner. And when He does move, we'll find ourselves saying, "If only I could get some rest!"
Open-Minded Revelation
Photograph by Marcello eM.
"Test everything. Hold onto the good."
1 Thessalonians 5:21
A man who ate locusts and dressed in wild skins; a prostitute; a donkey given to speaking - these are some of the beings God chose to reveal Himself through as mentioned in His Word. So why do we have such a problem accepting God's revelation from people whose culture or social standing may be offensive to us?
You may be Conservative with a dislike for loud prayers; you may be Pentecostal with an aversion to quiet prayers; you may be well dressed with an objection of people who smell - don't let that disqualify you from hearing God. God didn't come to earth in the form of an Armani-clad motivational speaker. He chose to come as a carpenter from Nazareth - a hillbilly with a broad accent that some people would have shown contempt for.
There can be great grains of gold in the seas of sand. We can find something from God if we test everything and hold onto the good that remains. We can hold up someone's words against the Bible and hold onto those things that comply. Just don't be so open minded that your brain falls out! Let God speak however He chooses to and you'll be surprised at the great pearls that you will discover.
Faith
"These trials will show that your faith is genuine..." Faith: more valuable than gold, more refined and celebrated more than we could ever imagine. Faith becomes more than words when we go through trials - when God strengthens us to keep seeing His character in the dark hour of circumstance. When we can keep seeing our hope and inheritance in Jesus, that's when our faith shines true - even amidst the trials.
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