Thanks for the Reminder

Tonight I was transported back to that time when words and not music were used to express how much YOU mean to me. I had to go back. Back to the basics. Back to the beginning. Back to the familiar.

It took sitting in a room that clearly defined its purpose, on a pew that could make your bum numb after 20 mins, in a room full of people whose ages averaged a number more than twice my own, singing songs in a key that reached heaven before my praises, accompanied by an instrument that could add 10 years to any song for me to be reminded what praise and worship is all about.

When the music fades, and all is stripped away, and I simply come… Tonight I experienced this first hand. All else was stripped away. All else faded. The music was inconsequential. When I closed my eyes I was carried into YOUR presence by the words I declared rather than the moving melody. I got the melody wrong so many times, and yet it was just right, it was a perfect sacrifice, a sweet smelling savour, pleasing to YOU. Such a difference to a similar “ritual” performed earlier that morning. When I chose the songs, when I “ushered YOUR presence in” when I, that’s just it, when I! No, this time it was YOU.

I’m coming back to the heart of worship, where it’s all about YOU.Tonight, it was all about YOU. Tonight I was reminded that my prayer is worship. That my thoughts are worship, reading YOUR word is worship. And as I worshiped YOU throughout the service, I was struck with the stark contrast of other times when my worship ended with the song. When just as I had ushered in the Spirit, I ushered Him out.

Thank YOU for the reminder. Thank YOU for using YOUR servants to bring me back to the place that I ought to be. Let me not forget. Let me not go back. Ever on, ever forward, ever closer to where I ought to be.

why I smile?

why i smile?

sometimes the confusion inside is so overwhelming it threatens to implode littering my mind with a scatter of debris that will stick and clutter and disable my ability to function with clarity…so i smile

sometimes the pain is so intense that my tears feel like acid droplets tearing through the ducts that so desperately try to dam them in blinding the eyes that flutter in attempt to stop them shedding…so i smile

sometimes the sense of loss feels so real its almost tangible yet just out of reach so as to isolate me to the point that even loneliness eludes me…so i smile

but

sometimes sheer happiness erupts into a raucous laughter that lingers long enough to remain frozen on my face in that familiar form of…a smile

sometimes the memory of a time past shared with another person or group flashes before me causing that wistful look of reminisce expressed best in…a smile

sometimes a song a word a thought a sound is experienced or shared and a feeling of hope creeps up from the depths of my soul lifts my spirits and expresses itself through my body as…a smile

how can this be. smiling a response to such conflicting circumstances. to smile at both life and death must surely only exude some form of mental instability.

but

the source of my smile… not a lack of trial or hardship. not the absence of pain and loss. not emotions like happiness, pride or awe. no. JOY. not to be confused for happiness this is the joy of the LORD and this joy of the LORD is my strength. HIS joy expressed in my smile confuses the enemy who sees the hurt and the pain and the trial and the loss that i face. who sends the confusion and the tears. but as yesterday, today and forever HE who has availed to me that joy remains unchanged, so will my response to whatever circumstance i find myself faced with. i will smile.