I awoke empty and hollow. I looked for God. I didn’t see him. My mind was too distracted and unfocused. I prayed that what I was working on would bring him glory. I prayed that I was doing the right things, the things I was meant to do, that he wanted me to do. But I prayed while I was driving and I prayed while I was washing dishes and I prayed while I was working. I didn’t stop what I was doing to give him my time. And so…I didn’t see him. How could I?
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We are so accustomed to going through our lives to make them pretty. We hide the things that make us who we are in fear of judgment or, maybe, because we feel that we have to show ourselves in a certain light. I can tell you the people I admire most in my life are the people who are honest, who don’t hide truth, who admit their imperfectness. I can also tell you that, unfortunately, the list isn’t very long.
I’m sitting here trying to remember what happened this evening, to remember every part of it, the details. Writing this feeling on my heart so that I can do this every time. Tonight was a night of praise and worship at my church. And as I try to breathe in every part of it, to hold on to every part, I am left with the thought that it may have been the most profound spiritual experience in this ‘new’ Christian’s life. There’s something complete when someone, a leader, let’s his or her guard down in a moment of…abandon. When someone just surrenders and becomes, not a singer, not a worship leader, but just a person, a church member, a friend…a human-being desperate for the breath of God. Worship becomes genuine, lyrics of the song become a song of the heart…God moves.
I am guilty of it. Thinking my church leaders have it all together. That every part of their lives are dedicated to doing God’s work every hour of the day, that they don’t mess up, that they are as perfect as is humanly possible. It’s so easy to forget that our leaders are just people too. That they have human hearts, that they do human things and feel human feelings. It’s so easy to just think they have it all together in a perfectly packaged little life. But it’s an honorable thing when they reveal that they don’t. That they need Him just as much as the rest of us do.
And I think that’s why tonight’s worship broke my heart open just a little more. Because, in a crowd of a few hundred people, to be in complete abandonment…That’s exactly where God wants me. To be able to just say that I need Him, that I’m desperate for Him, that no riches or blessings or accolades or human judgment matter more than just being in His presence and requiring only Him. It’s okay to be unguarded when I need God. He knows my heart…and he loves me still. I am so thankful that His love is patient and kind. That he waits for me, sees me, knows me. I need to live in that always.
Tonight, I see Him. I see Him in a church that is doing amazing things, who is boldly taking on sex-trafficking, who feel enough love to lead people out of desperation and darkness and into Light. Tonight, He showed himself in the gift of these moments, in lyrics, in feelings, in prayer…In His Love. Tonight, more than ever before, I understand that I need Him, I require Him. I am filled and renewed with His Spirit. Tonight I am thankful, even more, for a worship team who gave me a glimpse of God this evening, for their worship leading me to my worship.
