Learning to worship...

I have become accustomed to going to the beach at night to pray. Living in quarters as small with so many people makes it difficult for me to concentrate while I pray. I have tried doing a quiet time on the beach in the morning, but whenever we walk around during daylight hours, we are followed. Sometimes it is by little kids that don’t speak English, so it is just difficult to know what they want. So my quiet times have been at night on the beach when it is dark because then people are intimidated by the “creepy guy on the beach.” My prayers have been a little different too. I always open the door to God, close the door to Satan, and then tell God that I will obey whatever He tells me to do, and I will pray for whoever He brings to mind, and I will talk with Him about whatever perks my interest…keeping in mind Philippians 4:4-13. (if you don’t know it, look it up!!!)

This last week I felt like God told me to put my guitar down for a while. It has been a little difficult for me to worship, because it has been a growing part of my life. As I was at the beach last night, I had an interesting conversation with God about worship. It started with talking about how long I am going to go without playing guitar. He asked me “If you were dating someone and the only nice thing you ever did for her was write her songs and sing love songs…how would she feel? Wouldn’t she get bored with them after a while?” Then I understood that although music is good and helpful, worship is FAR more than just music. It is not even what I thought it was.

I always played the role of the seeker and pursuer in my songs. It only made sense to me. I am the male…I am to play the role of the male. The man is to pursue his love until she will receive him. His job is to prove his love, and to show that his love is real, because she doubts his sincerity. He is to be persistent, displaying over and over again until she lets her guard down and allows him in her heart. It was at that time that God showed me that I had it backwards this whole time. WE are the bride of Christ! HE PURSUES US!!! It is not our job to seek Him out, nor to prove our love. He doesn’t expect us to pursue Him. SO OFTEN we talk about how we found God and not how God found us! He has been seeking us out this whole time!

So worship has to begin with listening to His love song over us. We will not hear this song unless we are still…thus it says “Be still and know that I am God!” He is trying to sing to us. We overlook His songs to us too often. But EVERY sunrise, every sunset, every cloud and star, from the tiniest of organisms to the largest of mountains, he uses all that He has made to serenade us with His songs. This creation is His love song to us…but when we walk away in the middle of His song, we do not need to fret, because just as anyone who is in love, He will continue to sing to us until we acknowledge Him and listen to His love song.

Some songs he sings daily, like the sunrise and the sunset, other songs he sings in season, like the colors of fall, or the fragrance of spring. Regardless of what song He is singing, we need to realize that He will not quit singing ever…EVER! Once we hear these songs, all the worries and burdens of the world fade away. All our hopes and dreams melt into the desire of knowing God. We do not need to try to convince God to fall in love with us. Our job is not to romance God, but to listen to God as he romances us!

After we hear this song, we respond like any bride would respond to her loving husband who expresses his love to her. She doesn’t need to say “Give me a little while before I respond to you.” NO! She runs to his arms and expresses her emotions right then and there! Of course there will come a time where she does something in response to this love. But so often we have the mentality that when the music isn’t any good, worship is “bad” or “we don’t get anything out of it.” Well NEWSFLASH: Worship is NOT FOR YOU!!! If you have to discipline yourself to worship, you’re not listening to His song. Worship will naturally happen as a response to His love for us. If you have not had this revelation, continue to pray and ask God to sing you His song.

I have not had a day off yet, and I have not had my rest yet. We’ve been doing a school in the mornings and going door to door in the afternoons and bible studies in the evenings…so despite my lack of sleep, He has been granting me rest as I walk in the dark on the beach. So your prayers continue to change my life. I have been praying for God to reveal His love to me…and it became so obvious that I was shutting Him up in my attempt to hear Him. He wants us to just sit and be with Him. He wants to hear about my day, to catch my tears, hear my silly songs, and hear my inside jokes. So I hope and pray that you can stop long enough to hear this love song.