Reality Check with Ann Downing...

I confess that I find myself asking fairly often, “what have I done to cause this?” Just earlier today, I said out loud (I was alone  )….”Dear God, what else do I need to repent of?” Now, I don’t know if I would have said that if I had been standing face to face with Him in the physical sense, but I do believe that He must have kinda thought about it a bit….’cause the phone rang. It wasn’t a huge deal, but enough to say to me that sometimes it’s not about repenting, it’s about waiting. And to be honest, most of the time it’s easier to repent than to wait. During these last few minutes, I’ve found myself remembering the Scripture..”While you were yet sinners, Christ died for your sins”. If He has died for me in my sins, then I’m just gonna believe that He’s loving me enough to see my heart and not always judge me as guilty guilty guilty just because the struggle is hard in finding a way to believe. Yes, I need to repent when I’ve missed His “mark” for my life....I’m jus...

Oh my….sometimes the words just won’t come, will they? The pain is far too great to put into words, the fear can paralyze and make it very difficult to express what we’re feeling. I see TV accounts of towns blown away, meaning lives were lost and hearts were broken….I hear hurting men and women and children talk about how hard it is to just keep going…it just makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Why? Why? Why? I’m so grateful that Romans promises the Holy Spirit will pray for us at such times….when we can’t say to God or anyone what we’re trying to communicate, God will hear….the Holy Spirit sees to that.

One of my first songs to co-write was “Learning to Trust a Trustworthy God”. The terrorists’ attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred shortly after Marty Funderburk and I finished the song….in fact I’d just started staging it. One Sunday morning as I was introducing the song the thought hit me that maybe one of the reasons Marty and I had written the song could be to remind us how important it is to continually be longing and learning to trust a God Who is indeed trustworthy. It’s easy to trust God when things are running smoothly, isn’t it? But for the hard times, it’s all about building our trust in a God Who can keep us steady, even in a level of peace, when the whole world around us is crashing down.

Well, of course God is good. But, He’s good whether we feel it, see it, hear it, believe it or not. How many times have you heard someone say “God is good, all the time, all the time God is good” when things haven’t gone exactly as they’d wanted or prayed? Don’t we say it easily after a prayer has been answered pretty much “our way”? If you’ve heard me in concert or speak more than a few times, you likely have heard me share what Corrie ten Boom had to say on this….someone said to her, “Oh Corrie, wasn’t God good to bring you out of the concentration camps?” to which Corrie responded, “Oh, He was good when I was still in the concentration camps”. Now, if I can be realllll honest here, I don’t think my lips have very often spoken those words, “God is good” during those times of confusion, fear, complexity¸lack, etc. But let me SEE, HEAR, FEEL the difference He’s made and it’s easy to mouth the words..and believe them. My next quest, I think, is to see Him, feel Him, hear Him ...

I don't know, but I'd just bet most of us find ourselves questioning over and over if we're really doing what God has called us to do. You know...it's like we ask again and again, "dear God, what is Your will?" That's a good prayer to pray, a good petition to make to God. But really and truly, don't we already know, or pretty much know what His will is?? Are we sure we aren't just wanting somebody to say we don't really have to follow through with those commitments we already know we are to make?...especially if it's hard, if it takes time, if it calls on us to do more than we really want to invest right now? Maybe more than anything, we just need to show up everyday and say something like, "Dear Abba Father, here I am, I'm showing up, listening, looking, wanting to represent You well this day".

Quitting was not a word heard very often on the Sanders farm where I grew up. Daddy was a cotton farmer…and my sister Lavern, my Mama and I were the biggest part of his “equipment”, so to speak. Cotton farming was hard work….but I can honestly say that I could count on my two hands the number of times I ever heard Ernest and Lillie Sanders say they were tired after working in the field from sunup to sundown, literally, with about a 30 – 45 minute break for lunch, which Mama had cooked before leaving for the field very early in the morning (and this was after she’d cooked a full breakfast). What I did hear a lot of was “well, we got a lot done today”, or perhaps “feels good to be tired so I can sleep better”. So, I often say…. when somebody questions me as to how I drive the long hours, stay in a studio for an eternity to record an album, personally stay in touch, as much as I possibly can, with all those who communicate with me on email, Facebook, via my website’s fANN forum mes...

It's the Easter season....life is everywhere! But there had to be and still has to be death first. I'm asking myself today...."what do you need to let 'die', Ann?". I'm not good at change....seems you need to hang onto everything without having to say "goodbye" to it, which seems sad, even if it's the arrangement of furniture in my living/great/gathering room. I have no idea why I feel it's sacred to let things stay the same...at the risk of sometimes having to drag the "old" day after day, wearing myself out,leaving little energy for the "new" things God could perhaps want to do in my life. I'm working on the trust in letting go. I'm watching a couple of guys work in my little courtyard, digging out those awful looking plants, or whatever they are :)....they're taking out a lot of half-dead, ugly stuff, but oh my, what beautiful pieces of green grass they're putting down,my shrubs look somewh...