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.