Past brokenness into worship

In my life, it seems there have been many times of near-total brokenness. Not long ago, I was in such a state. When I am broken, I experience an emotion of utter helplessness. I feel so completely alone, so totally in need, so decidedly confused about almost everything. Brokenness can become a deep valley with seemingly no way out.

I have become convinced, though, that God allows these times of brokenness because He wants us to go deeper with Him…He wants to reveal to us more of who He is.

Consider Job in the Old Testament. He was put through the severest trial I have ever read or heard of, yet he remained faithful to God. He also came out of the experience with a much more personal and meaningful knowledge of the Almighty One than he originally had at the beginning of the book. Consider his statement near the end of the book, “my ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen you.” (Job 42:5) Tell me, is that kind of knowledge not worth a very great trial?

There is a subtle caveat, though, in this brokenness. There is a fine line between brokenness and self-pity. Brokenness is generally a positive thing the end of which allows God to bring us closer to Himself. Self-pity, however, is a destructive surrender to the flesh. Faithful Job was chided by God at one point in the narrative. His sin was not for being broken, but I think for being self-focused and indulging in self-pity.

Several months ago I was at this place of being totally broken before God…I was an emotional wreck—oppressed, crying, on the verge of weeping. I was experiencing utter loneliness and confusion. At some point while I was crying out to God in this state, He showed me I had a choice. He showed me that to stay where I was for any longer would be self-pity. The alternative to this self-pity was Worship. Worship? What? I did not feel like worshipping Him, not in the least! By His grace, somehow, though, I was gently led to meditate on His greatness. I was slow at first to worship, I was fighting with my desire to indulge in self-pity. Eventually, though, as I entered into complete worship of Him, His peace overwhelmed me and lifted me out of my brokenness.

Job’s affliction lasted for an agonizing 37 chapters…it is painful to read them, I have trouble imagining what it was like to live through them! Note what changed Job’s lot—it wasn’t the restoration of what he had lost or the addition of something he wanted. His attitude changed when He became overwhelmed with the greatness of God. That is worship!

Pain is so deep and grief so real, that I will not simply tell you get over your self and start worshipping God… there is real brokenness that God allows in our lives, and it is nothing trivial. However, let me encourage you to evaluate your brokenness—it if is not bringing you closer to God, perhaps you are slipping into self-pity and it is time to for a healthy dose of Worship towards your heavenly Father. Never forget that He is in control and He loves you more than you can ever understand.

What is worship?

Worship…I have been ruminating on the subject of worship recently…especially the aspect of worship in Evangelical Christianity that is expressed in music and song. What is worship? A few musings follow that are my humble aspirations to try to define that word for myself.

If we define worship as an emotion, I think I would say the emotion of worship is the state of being in of total awe of God… total awe of His great power, love, holiness, beauty—in awe of who He is. When I feel that emotion, sometimes it makes me want to weep for joy; other times I feel as if I need to lay facedown on the ground in reverence. Sometimes, it makes me feel like hiding under something because I am so acutely aware of my own smallness, sin, or neediness. Sometimes, I just feel the urge to bellow out at full volume how great my God is! Sometimes the emotion of worship makes me want to do all of these things at the same time! To experience an emotion like this is a high…it could be described as a euphoric feeling of total peace, joy, and contentment.

Worship is so much more than this, though. The fuller picture of worship defines worship as an act, or better yet, a way of life. Worship is living your life in such a way to reflect the reality of how great God is. According to Paul, it is ordering each day in the light of God’s sovereignty and omnipresence....a daily yielding of oneself in unconditional service to most precious and compelling Person in the universe.

There is a real problem when we consider worship only in the first aspect of feeling of awe and decrease the second aspect of a surrendered life. The fact is, though, that the first aspect isn’t even valid if it doesn’t produce the second. There is sometimes a tendency in our self-actualizing do-what-feels-good culture to idolize the emotion of worship instead of giving genuine and heartfelt praise to the Receiver of our worship.

Worship is, like love, both a noun and a verb—it is a state of being, but it is also an act that has to be lived out day by day. To have the first without the second is emotionalism. The second without the first is drudgery. We cannot truly perform the act of worship if we are not living in the awe of the greatness of God. Likewise our acts that show surrender to God are meaningless motions if they are not done as a response to his greatness. These two aspects are inseparable.

Let me encourage you, dear friend—come to know Him in His endless greatness…and then order you life in that knowledge. It is the way life was meant to be lived.

Overachievers

My sister Sarah is an overachiever. The funny thing about overachievers is that they always feel like underachievers. Underachievers, on the other hand, always feel as if they are overachievers (that's why they never achieve anything else.)

What am I? Am I an overachiever or an underachiever?

A Wonderful Wedding

My best friend just got married on Saturday...what a blissful day! It was so much fun and such an honor to be "best man".

Congratulations, Sung & Chelsea. May God richly bless you in the days and years to come.

(click on a photo below for more)

Waiting on God

Waiting on God… that phrase brings up all sorts of emotions whenever I think about it. It is a sort of bittersweet thing really. It feels bitter because the thing desired is eating away at you…..but the aftertaste is sweet when you consider the One on whom you are waiting.

Whatever the thing is you are waiting for… it is something you desire with great expectancy. It is usually something you actually need, or something you want so badly that it feels like an actual need. In my life I think it has been first and foremost a desire to see God work in my life is some specific way—to see Him change something in my heart, or to see Him give me a level of direction or vision that I previously didn’t experience. Sometimes it has also been in regard to relationships—my desire and “need” for genuine friendship or companionship and not being able to see how He was or is providing for me in those areas. Things like these can eat away at a person--things desperately wanted, but incapable of being acquiring by simple self-effort. They are things that only the Father can provide. The wanting of things in this category can be a desperately bitter thing to experience. It can be soul-trying--the epitome of depression and demotivation.

Yet, I find that the waiting for these things is also sweet. Why sweet? Do I like waiting? Do I like pain? Or am I just by nature a patient person? No way. It is sweet because of what I know about the One I am waiting on. I know that He can provide the thing I desire. I know that He loves me more than I can comprehend. I also know that he will not deny me anything that I ask for if I ask for it with pure motives according to His will. I remember that His delay in providing has a reason. What glorious knowledge this is! The sourness is turned to sweetness as I stop to savor the thing that has been denied me. It reminds me of the sourpatch candy my sisters and I always buy at the penny candy store on vacation in Cape Cod. The stuff has a distinct bite to it as you first taste it, but the sweet aftertaste is addictive!

In Isaiah 40, the writer says “those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint.” This waiting is not sleeping or doing nothing---it is a type of active resting in God. It is not a diminishing of desire—rather it is an intensifying of expectation that the desire will in some way be met. And it doesn’t result in exhaustion, it results in a mystifying multiplication of strength and energy. The ones who wait on God renew their strength in the sweetness of His character and His promises and then before they know it, the thing that once challenged them and overcame them is overcome as effortlessly as an eagle catching an updraft of wind that the Creator sent his way.

Just let us remember to wait. And let us remember the One on whom we wait—He is faithful.

The Walk of the Spirit

It strikes me while reviewing my journal this morning from back in January, that the Walk of the Spirit is so much different than anything remotely like religion….it is also (at least from my experience) so easy to misunderstand. The walk of the Spirit is living life from day to day controlled not by a set of principles or rules or disciplines, but by the living presence of Jesus Christ. It is not about doing this or that (i.e. reading the Bible, praying, going to church or Bible study). It is also not about avoiding specific things… (like not falling, not lusting, not cursing, not worrying). Those are all good and appropriate sediments for a follower of Christ, but they are a ‘god’ of religion in themselves if they become the goal of our “Christian walk”. Following Jesus and living in the Spirit is about transforming belief and trust in Jesus Christ and it is totally something that we are incapable of perfecting in ourselves… we can express our deepest desire to have it take place in us, but ultimately it is the Lord who tunes and tweaks our hearts to live in this right relationship to Him. Could it be that living in the Spirit is about living above the daily grind of falling and repenting and falling and repenting?—your focus is consumed with something so much greater than trivial disciplines. Your life simply becomes a discipline of worshipping Jesus Christ. This flows out of you in the form of agape love toward your brothers and sisters and to those outside the Body of Christ.

It comes to my mind while reading Galatians 5 where Paul is speaking about Freedom in Christ that walking in the Spirit is in a category alone by itself—it really is above this whole plane of dos and don’ts. It doesn’t run in parallel with either human nature or with the rule and principle based approach of the Law. Those are both left in the dust as we stand before Christ as a new creature. On the one hand we are released from the death-grip of our sinful natures, yet on the other hand we are also above the condemnation of not measuring up to religion. Yes, we will still make mistakes (at times real doosies), but as long as we keep refocusing our eyes on Jesus, we will never loose our joy or our peace and sense of belonging as children of God. That is the wonderful good news of Jesus Christ!

No matches

Have you ever tried one of those online match 'em up sites? I never had, until today...I was a little board, and thought I would try one just for fun. I took the extensive online survey and then clicked the "find matches" link. The response was that I was unmatchable!
Good thing I'm not in any rush!