Category Archives: Worship

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Looking For Someone Not Stupid

I love The Message!  This was my morning meditation…

Bilious and bloated, they gas, "God is gone."
   Their words are poison gas,
      fouling the air; they poison
   Rivers and skies;
      thistles are their cash crop.

God sticks his head out of heaven.
      He looks around.
   He’s looking for someone not stupid—
      one man, even, God-expectant,
      just one God-ready woman.

He comes up empty. A string
      of zeros. Useless, unshepherded
   Sheep, taking turns pretending
      to be Shepherd.
   The ninety and nine
      follow their fellow.

Don’t they know anything,
      all these impostors?
   Don’t they know
      they can’t get away with this—
   Treating people like a fast-food meal
      over which they’re too busy to pray?

Night is coming for them, and nightmares,
      for God takes the side of victims.
   Do you think you can mess
      with the dreams of the poor?
   You can’t, for God
      makes their dreams come true.

Is there anyone around to save Israel?
      Yes. God is around; God turns life around.
   Turned-around Jacob skips rope,
      turned-around Israel sings laughter.  –Psalm 14, The Message

May I always be a God-ready Woman.

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A Time To Worship

Verandasunset
Have you ever had a moment when something overtook you and you began worshiping God with your whole being, when just moments before you were not even thinking much about Him?

Holy presence
gentle brush of angels wings
creatures strange breathing heavenly breaths encircle the throne
still they are saying


Holy Holy Holy

Holy is the Lord God Almighty
All of heaven is singing
Holy Holy Holy

Holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who Was and Is and Is to Come

I have been so acutely aware this weekend all the blessings I have in life; all the things I have to be so grateful for. And that it all came from God. None of it came from me. I have family, true friends, the love of the Almighty God, redemption, salvation and more redemption, grace upon grace upon grace. I am known intimately and loved deeply. And I know intimately and I love deeply. I am blessed beyond measure!

Two beautiful, peaceful days of a giving-thanks weekend were followed by today, a day of agonizing pain. I’ve been struggling all day with a horrible migraine. The kind that leaves you moaning and crying in pain on the couch, with the blinds drawn and the sound of the tv/stereo down low. I’ve done all I know to do to quiet the pain, to no avail. I’ve done all I know to distract myself from the pain, to no avail.

Until just a moment ago.

Mighty God
Strong to save
who can compare?
The earth is Yours and all that is in it
And every knee will bow and every tongue will sing

Holy Holy Holy
Holy is the Lord God Almighty
All of heaven is singing
Holy Holy Holy

Holy is the Lord God Almighty

Who Was and Is and Is to Come

I haven’t listened Watermark’s Constant album in a while, but tonight I did. One song,  aptly titled "Holy", stirred my soul and brought out all the emotions I’ve gone through the last couple of days, the awe, the amazement, the gratitude from the depths of my soul.

Instinctively I closed my eyes and began singing and worshiping. For some reason images of sunsets I’ve seen all over the world throughout my life came to my mind. I could see them as clearly as if I were there. On my roof in India, on my veranda in Cyprus, on the streets of Japan, in Hong Kong, in China, in Ethiopia, at Windsor Castle, over the ocean at the beach in LA, in the mountains of Colorado, on the flat, flat plains of Texas, over Puget Sound, back to the rooftop sunsets in Delhi… I don’t know why the sunsets, except they are often times I stop to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation for a moment and take a little time to worship Him.

May You be worshiped on the earth in this moment
As you are worshiped there in heaven at Your throne

In my mind I threw my arms out wide in praise, in worship, and I guess my "real" arms just had to follow. Here I am sitting on my sofa wrapped in a blanket, head-banging migraine in full force despite all my efforts, but singing at the top of my lungs, arms open wide. I’m sure I’d look like a crazy woman to any peeping tom who dared look in my window. But I don’t care. My migraine robbed me of this day; a day I desperately wanted to contemplate my blessings, all my blessings – and especially the amazing 2-hour phone call I had with my brother from midnight till 2am this morning. I was too tired to journal all my thoughts and feelings after our goodbyes, but I figured I had the whole day today to write and meditate and remember. I didn’t count on a rebellion from within. It may have stolen the day, but it could not have this moment. This moment is mine, and I’m spending it as I desire. In worship.

All this time, even before You’ve been worshiped
All this time forever unending You’ll be worshiped
All creation singing

Holy Holy Holy

Holy is the Lord God Almighty
All of heaven is singing
Holy Holy Holy

Holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who Was and Is and Is to Come


© Holy by Nathan & Christy Nockels

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Awake

I’m not a morning person. If it were up to me I’d wake up around 11am, get to work around 1 or 2pm and work till 11pm. Or later.

But there are some mornings that for whatever reason, I come fully awake. Today is one of those days.

Perhaps it was the Starbucks vente chai I treated myself to. Perhaps it was the music I listened to on my way to work. Perhaps.

Perhaps it was the explorations I made into my childhood "stuff" and the discoveries I made last night. Enlightenment at 2am. It was a beautiful and precious moment.

Perhaps it was that I went to sleep on that enlightenment.

I am not who I always believed I was; that negative image who I was convinced everyone else, especially my family, saw as me. I am not that person. I never really was. I just allowed myself to be put in that role and live out that premise.

That was a very freeing realization. It feels like I’m finally awake. For the first time in my life.

Good morning, Jesus.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
       your works are wonderful,
       I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
       when I was made in the secret place.
       When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
       All the days ordained for me
       were written in your book
       before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
       How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,
       they would outnumber the grains of sand.
       When I awake,
       I am still with you.  — Psalm 139:14-18

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Being the Beloved

I’m reading an amazing little book right now called "the Life of the Beloved" (see sidebar under "Currently Reading"). You simply must read this book! The first point of the book is that we, yes, WE my dear friends, are the Beloved of God. He calls us His Beloved, in whom He is well pleased. I know. This is something I’ve written about here before. BUT the cool thing is, here’s this reknown writer saying the very same thing that Jesus has been saying to me over and over and over for several years now. It’s feels soooo good to get confirmation from such an outside source that I truly am hearing the voice of my Beloved, and not believing a faery tale.

This truth is written all through the Bible, but so often we fail to read those passages, choosing instead to focus on what we think is required of us to "become" lovely and lovable.

God whispers it to us in the Psalms, in Isaiah, even Jeremiah The Depressing reminds us of God’s words to His people, "I’ve never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love!" (Jer 31:3 The Message) He screams it from the highest mountains through Jesus’ death and speaks it to our hearts with every sunset, every thunderstorm, rain drop and cloudless day.

In Ephesians Paul reminds us, "Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son." (Eph 1:4-6)

You and I, my dear friends, we ARE the Beloved of God. He revels in us every moment of every day. He sings our praises and dances with joy at the very thought of us. We bring Him deep and overflowing pleasure He delights in us.

So why do we have such a hard time delighting in ourselves?

Oh, the lies the enemy speaks to our souls! The lies we’ve heard from the moment we came out of the womb — perhaps even earlier — that we are not pretty enough, not good enough, not talented enough, not worthy of such unfailing love.

I believed those lies all my life. They shaped my opinion of myself and molded me into someone I was not meant to be; someone ashamed and unbelieving of my own beauty, my own loveliness.

But freedom has come. I am being untangled more each day from the chains that kept me locked in those lies. God speaks so freely and powerfully, each day. He speaks to me of His love. Each day He dances and sings, "You are my Beloved Daughter. In you I am well pleased! I made you and formed you; I called you by name long before you ever knew you had one. You are Mine. You are My Beloved. And I celebrate you every single moment of every single day."

I want this truth to so invade my soul that it infects every aspect of my life, however small. Think of how that will change how I live! It already is. Slowly, but surely, it is changing how I see everything, react to everything, how I move and breath and respond and live.

We are blessed, my friends. We are so blessed. God, the creator and sustainer of the whole universe, calls us His Beloved. He is pleased with us. No matter where we are right now, or what we have done — or are doing even at this moment. He loves us completely.

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What is Worship?

My friend Dawn recently wrote a couple of posts about worship. Then she wrote yesterday that she’s feeling vulnerable because of some posts she made on the Mosaic Nashville forum.

I understand her feelings of vulnerability. You put ideas out there and words with no faces sometimes stomp all over them. I quit reading that forum many months ago. But Dawn’s post caused me to go back over there and see what’s going on. 

Discussion is abounding over what worship is, exactly. And, as a side discussion, what leadership is and if we all are leaders or not. I thought Dawn made some very good points about worship and presented her thoughts very well. And she has good questions. Things like, are we being relevant to the culture around us in the way we structure and conduct our services? and Is worship more than just singing songs and listening to sermons? I’ll get to the leadership stuff in a moment, but first… what is worship?

It seems to me that worship has as many definitions/meanings as there are people. And it seems that no one really knows for sure what it is, exactly.

I’m no expert on the subject either. I’ve often wondered myself what it is we mean when we talk of worship. I apply the word to many things/activities, even non-activities. To the point that I muddy the waters more with my attempts to clarify.

Is worship the thing I do when I’m all alone in my home, listening to my favorite worship music and just being with God? Is it the thing I do when I’m at church, singing songs and lifting my hands in praise in a crowd of thousands? Is it the thing I do when I’m moving faders up and down, tweaking the E.Q. and making sure the sound is balanced and well-mixed? Is it the thing I do when I’m laying mic cords and putting up mic stands and mics, then wrapping it all up and putting them away? Is it the thing I do when I’m alone reading my Bible and asking God about the meanings and applications of the passage? Is it the thing I do when laughing with a co-worker, talking earnestly with another, crying with another? Or when I call a friend just to say "hi and I love you"? Or calling my sister to cry on her shoulder or comfort her heart over something? Is it the thing I do when I’m working and really digging into a project and gettin’ it done? Is it the thing I do when I’m driving to work and see the beauty around me? Or see a beautiful sunset on the way home? Or see Jupiter or Venus shining brightly in the evening sky?

As I asked God about about this yesterday, He brought to my mind Romans 12:1:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

Okay, I get it that. Sort of… what is it to "offer my body as a living sacrifice"? I mean, what does that mean, really? Again, it’s a churchy phrase long over-used and short on really context in my culture. So, I flipped over to the Message translation of the same passage and found new insight:

Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Now, that makes more sense to me. If I’m reading this right then the answer to all my above questions is, "yes". — So like God to answer in the affirmative to "all the above" when I’m convinced the question is an either/or question.

If I’m reading this right, then my worship is all of those things. Its everything I do, everything I say, everything I think, and everything I am. No ifs, no whens, no buts (if/when I do this, than its worship, but only if my heart is right… blah, blah, blah). Sounds crazy, doesn’t it. Maybe it is. Maybe I’m completely off my rocker (wouldn’t be the first time). But I think we humans too often put qualifiers on things where God doesn’t.

I know. Paul says "make all these things things an offering to God. This is your worship." But what if what Paul is really saying here is, "these things are your spiritual act of worship, make them an offering to God"?

Perhaps worship is a state of being, not a verb or a noun. Its the state of being the offering, whatever we do and say and think and are is the worship we offer, the worship we bring to Him.

Whoa, would that change the way I live my life and who I see myself as! There are some things I don’t want to offer to God as worship; things I do that aren’t right, things I think that aren’t pure, things I say that aren’t God-honoring, things that I am that I think aren’t good enough.

And yet, God made me to bring glory to Him…. Let me back up and just say, God made me. God. Made. Me.

Yep. Now I know I’ve got some of you worried. 😉

God made me. And He loves me. Just the way I am. I was made by Him to bring the exquisite fragrance of God to the world every moment of every day. But some days my worship smells more like poop than parfum. Yet even then, my offering of poop is my worship to God.

Okay, that’s nasty. I don’t want that to be true…

I once heard it said that we worship what we obey. I think that’s probably true. If I obey my own lusts, then I’m showing the world I worship them. If I obey my selfish desires and ambitions, then I show the world I worship me. BUT If I obey God’s commands and the passions He’s put in me, then I show the world I worship God.

What I’m getting at here is this: Perhaps we have misread this and other passages about worship to mean that worship is something we specifically do, rather than all that we do, say and are. Regardless of our focus on God, everything we do and are is our worship of, and to, God. The act of making ourselves the offering, of offering all we do, say and are to God, enriches and purifies our worship, so that it is holy and undefiled in God’s eyes (and acceptable to Him, like Abel’s offering — Gen 4:3-5). But even when we don’t make ourselves an offering to God, everything we do, say and are is still our worship to God. It’s just defiled and, well, poopy.

I don’t know if this is a true rendering of that passage. I don’t know for certain what worship is at all. I know what I call worship. And I know its not always the same as what others think. So I could use some help here. What do you think?

Joe, what do you say, you seminary-educated giant? 🙂 How ’bout you, Los? Thoughts from the Worship Leader? Wendy, anything?

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Wow!

Such an amazing weekend!! The conference was sold out — 23, 662 women, celebrating God at the last event to be held in the Charlotte Coliseum before its sold and most likely demolished.

I got so much out of each speaker’s message, the worship times, Sandy Patty‘s mini-concert and the pre-conference with Kathy Troccoli and Marilyn Meberg. There is much to digest, and much to tell.

I was exhausted when I got home last night around 8:30, so I didn’t do much of anything other than unpack, flip through my mail and  read through the stacks of email I got over the weekend.

I intend to do an internal de-brief tonight and hope to post some of what God taught me over the weekend.

What an amazing experience! If Women of Faith comes even close to your hometown, ladies, you need to go. I’m not kidding. It is time well spent, money well invested and memories worth the effort to make. Go. Go! Go!!

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Gratitude

I had The Most incredible day! I met some amazing new friends, connected up with a fellow worker from my former region overseas (and serving a people group that I still pray for constantly), hung out with new friends at lunch and for a time afterward, and had soul-nourishing conversations and laughter.

This morning Rick showed a Sarah McLaughlin video to preface his sermon. It was incredibly powerful and humbling. Shaun has a great post on this. I’d highly recommend watching the video and taking account of your own life afterward.

Rick’s sermon was on coveting. And I, like most "mature" Christians listening, I’m sure, thought, oh, I don’t really need to pay much attention today. This one’s not for me. I don’t want somebody else’s stuff, I want my own.

Whomp! That’s pretty much the sound I heard just before Jesus smacked me upside the head with Rick’s sermon, point after point, after point….

The one that hit the hardest was that coveting comes from a lack of gratitude.

Last week I found out I’m getting the exact place to live that I wanted. Its the place I’d left a couple weeks ago shouting "YES!!!! I don’t know what your answer is, Jesus, but mine is YES!!" and then proceeded to spend the next two weeks begging Him to let me have it.

Well, He did. And was I happy and jumping for joy? Not exactly. Now I was attacked daily with pang of worry over finances — what if this temp job I have falls through?  What if they decide they don’t want to hire me after all?  What if I can’t get another job? Will I be able to pay for this place… it is a little pricier than I’d planned, but I’m not paying utilities, so that helps doesn’t it??

Round the questions and doubts and worries went. No, I wasn’t grateful I’d gotten the place of my dreams. I was fretting that God wouldn’t come through the next time. This morning I came face-to-face with the reality that I’m so ungrateful for all that God has blessed me with.

My car, an old Ford Escort that continually reminds me that it’s name really does mean "Fix Or Repair Daily". But it was loaned to me at no cost over two years ago while I began the healing and grieving process after the deaths of my parents. And then it was sold to me by a generous family of four who’d discovered while I was borrowing it that they really don’t need two cars.

My roommate, provided to me by God at the last minute, for a season when money and jobs were scarce. Now I really can afford the place I wanted when I first moved here.

The jobs I’ve had. Especially the one I currently have. I absolutely love going into work. I love the people I work with. I love the work I’m doing. How many people can say that?

And then there’s the more global perspective. Last month Shaun posted a link to the Global Rich List site.

I plugged in my income and discovered this little fact:

You are in the top 3.46% richest people in the world.
There are 5,792,173,913 people poorer than you.

Okay, this isn’t really news to me. I’ve lived in India, I spent 6 weeks in Ethiopia. I’ve visited rural China. I got the hint that I was pretty dang wealthy by the rest of the world’s standards when I was given top student housing to stay in during my first visit to China, which would have been considered slum lord project housing here in the States.

I have it really good. I don’t just have it sort of good, or pretty good. I have it really good.

Too often I forget that.

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. — Phil 4:12-13