12:03.

So, I said yes. And yes, this sounds rather like some working out of a marriage proposal but it is not. I said yes to drumming next week. Probably when I wrote the last post, the decision was made in my head somewhere in deeper recesses just that it was not vocalised.

Every thing I posted about the rawness of drumming as a fledgling and the grating effects on the heart stand true still now. But something has happened in this same heart, I'm not sure when and how exactly but something has happened. The shift in focus from me to Jesus in this area of service feels real now. It is no longer a struggle where I continuously have to shove Me away, wharp myself on the head and say, look at Him, you toot! It feels like something solid has shifted in, in my heart. And pride, previously just bloodied and cut down, seemed to have taken a different place. A place where, musically, it doesn't interfer with faith.

Which is why when an unusual arrangement was proposed - that the worship leader, who's a drummer, drums the first few fast songs while I go to back-up vocals and the keyboardist take lead vocals - I was perfectly okay with it.

No wounded would-be musician pride or any thing, I was aware that whatever the arrangement and even if I do not play, I'm okay with it as long as God is lifted up high. And well, whatever's best, whatever would make the session work better, be more conduive for the fellowship is highest priority.

The Me in the equation doesn't need to be there. I don't matter, and I'm not saying this is any spirit but one of honesty and without woe-be-me-liness or bitterness or ashes-and-sackcloth-spirit. I may like to drum but it doesn't mean I have to, because it's not about me.

I'm recounciled. Not too sure exactly recounciled between what and what but it feels that way. And I can honestly say I - "I" as in me pride and as a musician, not me as an existential whole - don't matter in this greater scheme of things.

Last night was... interesting. And I have to stop falling back on the word when I'm lost for descriptions.

Somewhere during worship after the sermon, I think, I realised something. And I believe God was speaking to me. My heart hurt physically then for some moments, facing this realisation - that I have never worked at what I have been given. Writing, music, certain capacity for theology and questioning from that innate curiousity and need to understand... all these I have never seeked to develop properly but had always functioned with them on whatever undemanding level I could exercise them at. In a parallel to the parable of the talents, I feel like I have been the servant who buried his talent, except that in my case, it was not in fear that I would lose it in ventures but sadly because I have been too indisciplined, lazy, slothful.

And it hurts because I do want to serve God and use all I have for His Glory and Kingdom and I believe I am all and who I am because He does have a purpose for my life encompassing all these traits and abilities He has graciously given to me. But me, I have not sought to advance or use them. It's like I reach a wall on the path I tread and instead of seeking to get over it, I just either stand there or knock my head against it. Because they are easier courses of action. With music, with words, with burning questions which answers could benefit the fellowship, I had failed to be a good steward.

(That last area was further hammered into my heart during supper time, when the visiting pastor was introducing theological concepts to our table of dear brothers and sisters who were mostly unexposed as yet to those concepts, the same concepts that drove me slightly crazy a few years ago.)

Well now that I'm aware, I want to change circumstances. I will work at my music, I will absorb the classics and refine my craft of wordsmithery, I will read and follow through arguments and theological labyrinths.

I will accept His Word and store up His commands within me, turn my ear to wisdom, apply my heart to understanding. I will call out for insight, I will cry aloud for understanding, I will look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, and thus I will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God (paraphrase Proverbs 2:1-5).

I seek now.