Our Performance < Our Salvation

The past couple weeks I haven't been able to sing in church. If you can imagine, this was especially difficult for someone who has been singing since she was in the womb and someone who also serves on the worship team. Sitting with the rest of the congregation (the audience of a church experience, if you will) and just listening to everyone else sing was someone quite beautiful in and of itself. I saw people young and old hold a hand up to their Savior. Which is not something you typically see from a traditional church, where typically older people choose to go. So it is awesome to see stereotypes breaking in my not so common church! Something else I noticed was how happy it made me to hear people sing off key! I love hearing an entire group of people sing praises to Jesus, no matter their talent or skill level! It's something that reminds me that my performance, being and to sing or do well in school or killing it at my multiple jobs, does NOT equal my salvation. My salvation was freely given to me when Jesus died in place of me, and bore the burden of all the sins the world would ever commit. Sometimes (a lot of the time) I forget that. I stress about one of my jobs the most, as my job responsibilities might be changing there soon. I stress about finals and seeing my boyfriend enough. I stress about how I am going to pay for grad school. I stress about when I am going to retire from the military. I stress about my health and my performance as a soldier. But here's the thing- all of these stresses are only making me more sick, tired and irritated the more I think about them and just let bad thoughts stew. But the more I think about how temporary they are, about how they do not determine my salvation, or define me as a child of God, the more I can relax and enjoy my time on earth, letting my life be a light to the world of how amazing it is to serve my God! That doesn't mean I will always listen, in fact I will fall, a lot. That's just a part of being human! The important part is asking God to help you, because you can't do this life without Him. Our outcome does not equal His goodness! AMEN!