Guest Blogger: Rob Sharp

Rob Sharp, Worship Minister at Ellerbe Road Baptist Church, Shreveport, LA, is today’s guest blogger at DoYouKnowHowGodLovesYou.blogspot.com. I first met Rob – we called him Robby back then – when he was in high school. He and my daughter Christie became friends at band camps and district honor bands. Rob is a percussionist. When he attended Louisiana Tech, my husband, who taught trumpet there and directed the concert band, had the highest regard for him.

Rob says, “I was a band director for 4 years (LA, AR, TX) before surrendering to fulltime ministry. I then got my Masters from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and have been on staff at churches in Louisiana and Texas involved in worship ministry for the past 11 years.”

Mr.Cheatham shared a little story with me. “Anytime I get a chance I pass along the wisdom your husband passed down to me about being a successful professional musician, a lot of which could be described as how to be an effective and committed church musician/worship leader. It has seved me well as a professional and worship leader!”
•Be on time
•Be prepared
•Don’t make it about you
•Serve the song
•Be a good person and work well with others
•Remember where your talent comes from
•Be grateful

When Rob wrote the following, he was going through a difficult time in his life:

Hopelessness

Hopelessness is not a fun thing to experience. I would like to propose there may be times that we aren’t hopeless enough. That just doesn’t sound right, does it? Well, it all depends on who our hope is in. Even as believers we tend to feel hopeless about situations, because we cannot fix them.

If we are truly hopeless we would stop trusting in ourselves and start trusting Jesus and what he accomplished on the cross for us. Hopelessness stems from not being in control and we are not. But we know who is and there comes a time when we need to act like we know Him and place our trust in Him.

So how does one do that? The same way we grow in our relationship: we choose to praise Him, pray to Him, and press into His word deeper. I am not saying that is easy, but it is a choice! To praise Him in the midst of the storm is something even the disciples had trouble with.

If we are hearing His take on the situation, we know that He is control and we are letting Him guide us through it, we suddenly discover true hope. It’s not always about Him delivering us out of a situation; sometimes it about Him carrying us through it.

Faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love. He is love; so get to know who love is and let Him be the finisher of your faith and give you hope beyond yourself. See He loves you enough to deliver you through situations instead of delivering you out of it because it develops perseverance, perseverance - character, and character – hope.

Romans 5:3-5
3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.





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It Is Well with My Soul

"It Is Well with My Soul"

The Story Behind the Hymn Quoted from Wikipedia:

"It Is Well with My Soul" is a very influential hymn penned by hymnist Horatio Spafford and composed by Philip Bliss.

This hymn was written after several traumatic events in Spafford’s life. The first was the death of his only son in 1871, shortly followed by the great Chicago Fire which ruined him financially (he had been a successful lawyer). Then in 1873, he had planned to travel to Europe with his family on the S.S. Ville du Havre, but sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business concerning zoning problems following the Great Chicago Fire. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship sank rapidly after a collision with a sailing ship, the Loch Earn, and all four of Spafford's daughters died. His wife Anna survived and sent him the now famous telegram, "Saved alone." Shortly afterwards, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died.

Bliss called his tune Ville du Havre, from the name of the stricken vessel.

The Spaffords later had three more children, one of whom (a son) died in infancy. In 1881 the Spaffords, including baby Bertha and newborn Grace, set sail for Palestine. The Spaffords moved to Jerusalem and helped found a group called the American Colony; its mission was to serve the poor. The colony later became the subject of the Nobel prize winning Jerusalem, by Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf.

My Story:

When my husband, Bobby, died after suffering five years of paralysis caused by a variant of Guillain Barre Syndrome, I thought about all the meaningful hymns he used to play in church on his trumpet. Since this was one of my favorites, I decided to ask the congregation to sing it, and Mickey Cloud, the music minister, listed it in the funeral program. Most of the men who were pall bearers at his funeral were musicians. All of them sang beautifully. I wish I had a recording of those men and the congregation, including former music students, singing "It Is Well with My Soul." It was one of the most touching performances of it I've ever heard.

After all we went through, my family and I could truly say, "It Is Well with My Soul" because we understood it was and is well with Bobby Cheatham's soul. Bobby had such a special gift that I believe God was ready to call him home to join in the music of heaven praising the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

But Lord, 'tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.


And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.