New week, new city, new excitement for what God had in store!
Tuesday, 28th April - Prayer Journal*
*Me: Morning God! What's the word for today?
God: Confidence. Not in your abilities or in your looks or in your team. Confidence in Me because it's in me that you know who you truly are. You have unlimited worth my precious girl. Don't enter this day afraid. Enter it knowing I'm right here for you and I won't let you go. I love you, Sonya.
Me: Daddy I'm still nervous. Help me!
God: Breathe, daughter. Rest in Me. You know you can trust Me.*
This word helped me immensely with the day that followed. We were performing at Tauranga Boys' College and I learnt pretty quickly on tour that when you get up in front of a group of school boys they're going to see you before they care about what you have to say. This means that walking out on that stage you get yelling, laughter, wolf whistles and have a few hundred pairs of eyes glued to you. This can be pretty daunting... Now confidence is one of the main things I've worked on in drama. I love getting up in front of people and sharing but throw me into these situations and suddenly I'm not so calm side of stage! God's words to me gave me peace though. It meant that I walked out there with an authority to speak and a knowledge of who I am that anyone sitting in the audience could not alter. They had no power to throw me off my game, to belittle or objectify me or to intimidate me into being any less sure of myself and my God than I am. This makes all the difference walking out in front of countless strangers everyday and was such a valuable thing to realise and hold on to.
That same night we went to Miri and Mark Holloway's house for dinner and devotions. Mark is the author of current number 1 selling book, The Freedom Diaries. If you haven't read it I highly recommend. It's what's launched me into having conversations with God that go beyond our traditional ideas of prayer. You may have started to see that come through in my blog posts or conversations with you. This whole thing of God speaking on the regular is changing and shaping my life a lot! Anyway we had a great time of sharing and learning at the Holloway's house and it was followed up by a conversation between God and Mark that I featured in...
Mark: I’m just wanting to talk [with you] because it’s addictive. It feels so good. It’s like a drug, it’s the ‘UN-DRUG’ – it’s the absolute opposite of all the fogginess that drugs bring. Talking back and forward with you like this brings clarity and peace – not praying, but actually conversing.
God: Carry on…
Mark: Well I’m rambling God, but… umm, well I like you, I think. I don’t want to say I love you because I think we rattle those words off to you when we don’t even know what you’re like. We think we love you, at least that’s what it seems like to me – maybe I’m the only one? Well that’s how it seemed until we started having an actual conversation like this. Until then I had no real idea what you were like. It’s like the kids from Excel said – Sonya and Jono – they said that now they’re having an actual conversation with you that the Jesus they thought they knew disappears and the real you starts challenging so many of the traditional concepts of what you’re like. I recognised immediately that they were experiencing the same thing that’s happened to me.
Mark and Miriam also came to our Saturday night youth show and then we were sent this conversation from Mark...
Mark: So God what are YOU thankful for?
God: I’m thankful for Excel.
Mark: Why?
God: Did you see what happened last night?
Mark: I think so? Did I?
God: "And Jesus stood up in the temple and read – The Spirit of the LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners."
Mark: What do you mean?
God: I mean you have, those kids have, Koia and John have absolutely no idea the power of what took place last night. They look at their performance, but I see what takes place in the invisible realm. And what took place at that level was huge. These are warriors, mighty men, all of them. The result was absolutely huge. They need to see it.
Wow. Do you feel the weight in those words? I do. It's so amazing to know that whilst we're up on a stage performing, God is doing some serious business in the hearts of the people as they experience our expression of art.
You know one of the comments I most often get after shows is, "You just have so much confidence up there, it's amazing how you're so unafraid and open." Well I can tell you right now that all of that comes from God. Yes, I've had training and I've had to push past boundaries and barriers and work hard to get to it, but ultimately it is the words of life that God speaks over me that allows me to then share those words with others. Through this, other people can hear from God too and maybe grow in their own confidence...
