note to self: STOP IT.

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7

I have a love/hate relationship with a certain praise team song I lead. I actually love the song. I just hate the very first note of the first verse. Or maybe it just hates me. The latter seems unlikely, I know.

The last time I sang this song, the instruments played the intro, got right up to the first verse and …

I didn’t have it.

I looked at the worship leader at the moment I was supposed to sing and shook my head. He started the song and turned it over after the first line.

When I talked to him later he said, “you’re just over thinking it.”

I tend to do that.

Just an hour earlier, I had walked into the music room for the pre-service rehearsal and the worship leader and the drummer were both there. I listened to them play and after a few minutes I recognized the guitar intro to Mighty to Save. The drummer recognized it and fell in. I absentmindedly came in on the right note. Fell in is more like it. I didn’t even try. Wasn’t even thinking about it.

simple.

It hadn’t always been simple. When I first learned the lead to Mighty to Save, I bought the Laura Story version, with the piano intro. Then I came to rehearsal and we didn’t have a pianist. We did have two guitars that day. And unfortunately, they each had chord charts in two different keys. I was standing closest to the guy with the wrong chart. I came on on the wrong note, but it fit, until midway into the verse, then it was glaringly obvious I was off.

Let the season of doubt begin.

After that, I had no confidence that I could come in on the right note. How could I have started on the wrong note and not even realized it? What if I did it again? How do I recover the song if I come in on the wrong note during worship? The music director offered to play my note on the flute for me. It got to the point where I believed I couldn’t do it without her.

I hated that.

I was determined to break my need for this crutch. I bought the Hillsong version of the song, with the guitar intro. I completely stopped listening to the piano version, even going to the extreme of turning off the radio if it began playing.

FINALLY.

I was able to begin on the correct note without the flute playing it in the background. I led the song multiple times over the next few months without a problem.

So what was different about the last time I sang it?

the piano.

After I came in so effortlessly at the beginning of the pre-service rehearsal, we added keyboard to the intro and rehearsed it again after everyone else had gotten there.

I couldn’t find the note. Actually, I have no idea if I could or couldn’t find the note, because I didn’t try. I just said, “I don’t have it.”

Season Two. The doubt was back. I wimped out during the rehearsal, so you know what happened when it came time to start the song during worship, I froze up. Chickened out. wimped.

Will I ever be able to start this song on the right note if I hear a piano? I don’t know. But I won’t ever know if I don’t try.

So the wimping out for fear of getting it wrong? I’m going to STOP IT.

Wimping out for fear of getting it wrong . . .

I’m betting there’s a lot more I wimp on than that one little note.

“Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”
Winston Churchill