FROM: Banbury, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
ABOUT ME: Living the highs and lows of life in the adventurous pursuit of God Himself and of who I'm meant to be as the Bride of Christ.
(View complete profile)
Saturday, August 04, 2007,1:28 p.m.
SLOWING DOWN
Since being in a small town in Saskatchewan and then coming back home to Vancouver, I've been pondering the pace that we choose to live our lives. Before leaving town on my holidays, I had 10 days that were so filled with appointments and scheduled things that I barely had time to breath, let alone pack and have a few moments of down time. Then I went to SK, and had almost nothing but down time for two weeks. Then I came back and noticed myself fighting for the down time again (winning, at the moment....).
The pace we live our lives at is hectic. Yes, I get it - many of us cultivate that pace ourselves. But I think at the same time, some of it is thrown on us, some of it comes from our own decisions, and some of it comes from our own desires. And what I find when the pace starts to pick up is that I do things in order to get them done, as opposed to doing things for the enjoyment of or even just the actual reason for doing them.
Which got me thinking about our worship of God (of course).
How much do we just ponder the character of God?
How often do we just sit there and "stare" at Him, so to speak?
How frequently do we find ourselves simply daydreaming about who He is and how great He is?
And for me especially, the kicker was this: How often do I sing or lead a song used for worship with the song and its tempo being what drives my pace of worship instead of the wonder of God?
I have lately been working on pondering the words of scripture more slowly, and the words of our songs more intentionally. That's tough - my mind wanders, I usually have a dozen things going on in my head (if you've met me it's for that reason that I often blurt out weird and random things in the middle of a conversation), and to focus so intently on something that is not actually physically in front of me can be difficult. And if I'm at that moment actually in the role of musical worship leader, I'm also thinking of where to go next, is my bass player following me, do the PowerPoint words match what we're singing, where is the Holy Spirit wanting to go next, etc., etc.
But the words we sing and read are powerful. Actually, that's not quite true. The truth that we sing and read is powerful. Maybe it's a good discipline to read less at a time, and really chew on and swallow the wonder of what those words and that truth is saying. Maybe we should sing some and then remain silent, ruminating on the glory of God that we have just sung about.
What a tough discipline.
But what a fantastic opportunity to purify our worship.
So here's something to try: I'm going to write just a tidbit of a scripture - not even the whole sentence all at once. Chew on it, ponder it. Don't pretend you've done it (like I do whenever I read stuff like this in a book or something) - really do it! Take a day, two days, and let it be what your mind drifts to. Go deep and see what revelation of God you find in just a few words of scripture. Let God show you more of Himself in it, and then respond to that in worship of who He is.
The pace we live our lives at is hectic. Yes, I get it - many of us cultivate that pace ourselves. But I think at the same time, some of it is thrown on us, some of it comes from our own decisions, and some of it comes from our own desires. And what I find when the pace starts to pick up is that I do things in order to get them done, as opposed to doing things for the enjoyment of or even just the actual reason for doing them.
Which got me thinking about our worship of God (of course).
How much do we just ponder the character of God?
How often do we just sit there and "stare" at Him, so to speak?
How frequently do we find ourselves simply daydreaming about who He is and how great He is?
And for me especially, the kicker was this: How often do I sing or lead a song used for worship with the song and its tempo being what drives my pace of worship instead of the wonder of God?
I have lately been working on pondering the words of scripture more slowly, and the words of our songs more intentionally. That's tough - my mind wanders, I usually have a dozen things going on in my head (if you've met me it's for that reason that I often blurt out weird and random things in the middle of a conversation), and to focus so intently on something that is not actually physically in front of me can be difficult. And if I'm at that moment actually in the role of musical worship leader, I'm also thinking of where to go next, is my bass player following me, do the PowerPoint words match what we're singing, where is the Holy Spirit wanting to go next, etc., etc.
But the words we sing and read are powerful. Actually, that's not quite true. The truth that we sing and read is powerful. Maybe it's a good discipline to read less at a time, and really chew on and swallow the wonder of what those words and that truth is saying. Maybe we should sing some and then remain silent, ruminating on the glory of God that we have just sung about.
What a tough discipline.
But what a fantastic opportunity to purify our worship.
So here's something to try: I'm going to write just a tidbit of a scripture - not even the whole sentence all at once. Chew on it, ponder it. Don't pretend you've done it (like I do whenever I read stuff like this in a book or something) - really do it! Take a day, two days, and let it be what your mind drifts to. Go deep and see what revelation of God you find in just a few words of scripture. Let God show you more of Himself in it, and then respond to that in worship of who He is.
"If therefore there is any encouragement
in Christ...."
(from Philippians 2:1)
