Friday night I was driving alone. This has always been my best time for reflection, and I rarely drive anywhere alone anymore. But here I was Friday evening. Something (and I'm not sure what it was) reminded me of sharing with my college friends in times of worship. Not just a bunch of goofy kids singing songs about Jesus (though we were that), but real hearts opened up and poured out before a worthy King. And I missed it.
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Sunday morning I was doing the rush-to-get-everyone-ready-for-church thing. I was getting irritated that I was running late and I thought "I am not going to get to church late again!" I didn't want to miss half the worship time because I had to make my hair perfect or because of a last minute diaper change. Then I started to think about how long it had been since I'd been at church... Last week: vacation. Week before: helped in kids' classes then went home. Previous week: Visiting family for Christmas. Previous week: Choir performance. It had been five weeks since I had been in a normal church service! Five weeks since I had the chance to just worship with my church family.
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We sat down in church 28 seconds before the service started. Normally music starts right away but this particular Sunday our Senior Pastor introduced the worship time by reminding us what worship is: not about singing, not about us in anyway, but about bringing worth to God; it is not something we initiate but a response to who God is. This was the perfect lead in to a really great worship time. I sang with my eyes closed almost the entire time, trying not to think about who was around me or who was on stage or even if I was singing on key.
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It's kind of funny how God orchestrates things. Sunday morning when I realized I hadn't been to church for five weeks, I thought that's probably why I was missing corporate worship. But then when Pastor Jan started the service by talking about worship it was kind of weird, like he was saying it just for me. I just love those times when things all work together in unexpected ways. It's a reminder to me that God knows and loves me personally.
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I really like this post. It's so easy for me to remember back to "what used to be" back in my church's college group. All the friends, all the late nights, all the intimate times of worship. Where is that now? Why do we feel the need to grow up our church services? I want those times again, I want those moments. I don't want to always look back.
This is a long comment, I guess I have something to blog about now.
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