This is a cry for help. Being a musician is a beautiful, expressive gift, but when it comes to musical worship, this can often be a deep, lonely curse. When I am a part of leading, everything is in it’s right place. I am less distracted. Less critical. But when I am a member of the body or congregation, I am so easily distracted. Unless it is to my ‘approval’ regarding the quality or execution or arrangement, I am completely distracted. To describe it better, the struggle looks like this: I get maybe thirty seconds at a time (a minute or two if I’m lucky) of focus on God, in waves. Some days are better than others. The rest of the time I am a critical jerk. I HATE IT. I can’t turn it off. I don’t know how to. I think of how I would do things differently. I think of each persons’ technique and prowess on their instrument, specifically guitar players. I think of the way a person sings and leads, which is funny because I am not a very good singer, but I can be terribly critical of others.

For those of you who have been there or find yourself relating in any way, have you ever seen God give you lasting victory in this area? How? What would be your advice in opening myself to God’s healing in this area?

It’s easy when everything is incredible. I can think of few times though that I am often around “incredible” by my biased standards (excellence in worship music is another discussion for another time). But when things are really rough… even to the untrained ear. When it’s the worst of the worst. How do you turn off your musical intuition and focus on what truly matters? God.