Embracing His path for Us
By Joey McAllister on June 16th, 2017
Too often in our lives we become trapped in an image that is far from what God has designed us to be, an identity that hinders our relationship with our Lord and with others. Not only does God create us in His likeness, giving us life through His breath, but He also shapes and molds us into new creations, far removed from the misshapen figures of the world. Embracing the path that God has for us isn’t easy and certainly isn’t always comfortable, but in the end it is most satisfying as we come to a place of redemption and find that what He has for us is so much more than anything we could have imagined. Below is the testimony of Joey McAllister, a young man in our church body who has begun living out the journey of finding His true self in Christ even if it comes at a cost…
Many of you here at Living Hope Church have known me for a long time and for just as long have heard me play guitar. Be it on Wednesday nights, Sunday mornings, or for a brief stint, Saturday evenings; it’s been my way of plugging in (pun intended) to the church. So when my mom told me Pastor Don was looking for a keyboard player I thought “I’ve never played keyboard but I really enjoy playing my piano so I’ll at least make the offer”. Everyone at the church embraced me immediately and for that I am grateful.
You see, when I first came back -and really up until several months ago- to Living Hope I was only going through the motions in regard to my walk with Christ. I enjoyed playing on Sunday not because I was worshiping God so much as because I’m a musician at heart and playing keyboard was new and exciting for me. But God used this opportunity to pull me back into the calling He placed on my life. Sometime around January I heard God speak to me for the first time in a long time but in the moment, I wasn’t sure because it was out of nowhere. He said simply “Do what I’ve asked and I will give you that which you desire most.”
Since the time God spoke to me and until early February, I had been fighting Him about leading worship -the thing He was referring to when he spoke to me the month prior- and I had very few excuses but the one I still held on to, and had for many years, was “I don’t like my singing voice.” And God took the opportunity to speak to me again clearly and with authority: “but I do. I gave it to you.” So with my last excuse rendered null and void, I told myself “fine, I’ll sing”.
Then Ben and Micah Williams came at the end of that week. At the time, I didn’t know why exactly other than to do some conference. But of course, the message they brought went hand in hand with the exact thing I had been dealing with all week and God used it to finish breaking me down with the intention of building me back up. This time fortified. Finally I was ready. I told Pastor Don I would like to start leading songs on Sundays after he got back from the cracker trail.
The week before I led my first song I’m at work stocking the soda cooler by myself and kind of praying as I work. I tell Him that I don’t care about my possessions, all I care about is worshiping Him and this promise He gave me months back. So again, He speaks up and tells me “Then sell your video game collection and buy a Taylor” which perplexed me. I get the selling my most prized possessions part, but why would God want me to buy an acoustic guitar? Well anyway I decided to sit on that for a bit as I was not sure what to make of it yet. The previous Saturday I had scheduled a meeting with Pastor Don because he wanted to talk with me about something but didn’t disclose anything more than that.
So Wednesday rolls around and I sit down with Pastor Don and Pastor Emily and the first words out of his mouth are “Do you happen to play acoustic guitar?” What could I do but chuckle at how sometimes He doesn’t give us the full picture right away almost as if it’s for dramatic effect. I’m paraphrasing at this point. “We’ve been thinking about adding live music to our Grandvilla outreach and you were the first person I thought to ask. It would be a good way for you to work on leading music like we discussed the other week.” Knowing God was at work I gladly accepted the offer.
The final part of this testimony, the part that made me so overwhelmed by God that I could only laugh, is I spent most of the following Saturday listing my video game collection on Craigslist thinking maybe I could sell enough stuff to buy the guitar I picked out -it was a little over a grand- in maybe a month. I had sold all but one of my listings in less than a week and was able to buy the guitar, my Taylor named Ava, in 7 days. As I told my mother, “There’s coincidences and then there’s God.”
I’m excited for everything God has done, is doing, and is going to do in our Church family. I’m blessed that God chose me to help usher in His presence and I’m glad He chose to do so here at Living Hope Church.
God bless,
Joey McAllister
