Waiting on God

            I’m reminded of a time this past summer or fall I invited one of my friends to go hiking with me at First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach.  It’s one of my favorite places around here.

            Lately I had been listening to this worship album by Jonathan and Melissa Helser called Endless Ocean, Bottomless Sea.  And what it actually was, was a 2-CD album of the extended versions of the songs from their previous album On The Shores.  When the Helsers were recording their first studio album, they tried to record it the standard way, and they said they could just tell God was not in it at all.  Finally, what I remember, they set up their house on their farm in North Carolina as a studio, and they said, “We’re just going to worship, using these songs as starting points, but we’re going to worship freely, spontaneously, and keep the tapes rolling.”  And through that, they had an encounter with God that set them free in a lot of areas in their lives, and they realized that this is how they were called to operate as worship leaders and recording artists.  So Endless Ocean, Bottomless Sea was the long, relatively “unabridged” version of their worship time in the studio during the recording of their latest, On The Shores. 

            And the album was really special to me, because it really matched where I was with the Lord.  They were very free during their spontaneous worship time.  They didn’t necessarily try to say anything super profound (as if the simple truths aren’t profound enough); they didn’t shy away from sounding childlike in expressing their affection for the Lord, or reveling in his affection for them; and maybe most meaningful to me at that particular time, they didn’t feel the need to “fill up the space”: they were totally comfortable just easing into the time and not having a lot to say.  It seemed like that made the words have a special quality to them, even if, like I said, they weren’t particularly “profound” or brilliant.  They were spontaneous; they were not “obligatory” in any way; and maybe most of all, there was a restfulness to them, that drew you into the reality that time spent with God is meaningful, and we can rest in him without feeling like we have to justify that time by saying something profound or impressing him with our zeal or something like that. 

            God really ministers to me through nature, many times.  It’s always helped me get re-centered and get my head clear.  As I was walking the trail with my friend, I felt in my spirit not to rush at all, and often I would just stop at a certain view for a long time, or just simply stop and sit against a tree.  I felt God drawing me at certain times to just stop and soak it in, soak him in, without feeling like we had to make “progress.”  I was worried sometimes that my friend, he would get impatient.  But what I felt from the Lord was, “What was it you’ve been appreciating so much about that album?  The restfulness?  The quiet assurance of knowing that worship is not about pretending that you have so much to offer me, but acknowledging all that I have offered you?  Do you want your life to reflect the same truth, or do you want to keep that as another American, bottled entertainment experience on your CD that you can pull out when you want to pretend?”  I felt like God was saying, “I want to make that same music spring forth in your life; but you have to change your life to make a place for it so I that I can do that.  You have to change your outlook.  You have to change your modus operendi, and it starts now.  Do you here me calling you?  Do you hear me drawing you through these trees, this landscape that I created you to love and appreciate?” 

            I felt a new freedom by the end of that walk (and my friend didn’t get upset with me!  He like’s the place too, and was find waiting or walking ahead and doubling back).  I’m glad I started taking steps in that direction of making an empty space, empty time, that God can fill, just like Jonathan and Melissa Helser do on their albums.  I’m happy that our God is a living God, and the experience that I had listening to their record didn’t have to be just another “bottled American entertainment experience” on CD, but was able to point me to the way that I could connect with my living God on my own as Father. 

            That journey has been long and has required a lot of persistence, and I think I have to be honest and say I still can’t see what’s at the end of it.  But maybe we’ve been fooling ourselves if we thought we could look ahead at the final outcome of things in the first place.  Maybe what’s really been needed all along is the childlikeness and willingness to know him along the way, and walk by faith.  Knowing the journey that I’ve been on, and now in this post looking back at one of the moments that initiated this journey, I have one last thought that seems worth sharing.  And that thought is about “waiting until…” 

            I got the phrase from Luke 24:49: “And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (King James Version).  “Tarry…until.”  “Wait until.”  Jesus told the disciples to “wait until” the Holy Spirit had come upon them and empowered them for the work he had given them.  I think we as modern American Christians have lost the ability to accept when God says “wait until…”  I think after a while when we start to get fidgety, we eventually take things into our own hands, and even say we are doing it in his name.  We sometimes say things like, “Well God gave us a brain, and he wouldn’t give it to us unless he wanted us to use it, figure it out!”  And that’s true in many cases, and it’s not always wise to “wait until…” if God didn’t say to.  BUT, I believe there still are those times when we’re supposed to “wait until…” and I believe we are so self-reliant, or reliant on the world’s system that we will often directly disobey God during those times, and rationalize it.  I think we tried to follow Jesus without first laying down our self-reliance and reliance on the world’s system.  I believe that is mostly why there are so many Christian activities and Christian initiatives which started shouting that they were about to do something great for God, and now mostly serve to keep us busy going around in circles and feeling virtuous about it.  Imagine if the apostles had rushed out and tried to fulfill Matthew 28, “The Great Commission,” without obeying what Jesus said here in Luke 24:49.  No Pentecost.  All their efforts twisted and warped by reliance on man’s wisdom and ability. 

            King Saul was judged unfit by God to continue as king because, under pressure from the Philistines, he would not “wait until” the prophet arrived to offer the sacrifice (I Samuel 13:1-14).  (The fact that he offered a sacrifice shows that he tried to pass off his presumption as something he was doing for God.)  The Israelites wouldn’t “wait until” Moses came back down from Mount Sinai (forty days is a very long time, and probably much longer than they had expected), and they felt they had to make themselves another god, the golden calf.  The Apostle Paul, even though he started preaching about Christ in the synagogues immediately after he met Christ, he still had to “wait until,” years later, the Holy Spirit sent him and Barnabas to go start their ministry (Acts 13:1-3).  I suspect that Jesus, when he was driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, probably didn’t know ahead of time that it would be forty days, and then he would leave.  He probably had to “wait until” the same Spirit who led him into the wilderness led him out.  We’re glad the Savior “waited until,” and overcame the devil in the wilderness before starting his ministry! 

            Anyway, that last point took longer than I had planned, but I do believe there are crucial times (like in Luke 24:49) when we are supposed to “wait until” God reveals what to do.  Jonathan and Melissa Helser, if you’re reading this (which I’m sure you’re not), thank you for your CDs!  It’s been fun recollecting and reflecting how God used that at a particular moment in my life, and taught me to do what you all started doing from your first album: setting a place for him, and counting the time waiting in his presence as perhaps the most meaningful!  

How Precious Also Are Your Thoughts to Me, O God

     As I lay down a few nights ago, I was bombarded by thoughts from 1,000 directions.  And if I choose to answer a few in one direction, it felt like I was dropping something in the other directions.
     As I was lying there, I was listening to a new jazz CD I had really been enjoying, Gary Burton's Cool Nights, and I was just lying there letting the music kind of wash over me.  And all of a sudden I started meditating on Psalm 139 and seeing it in a new light.  It says, "How precious also are Your thoughts to me [or toward me], O God!  How great is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;  When I awake I am still with You" (Psalm 139:17-18).
     As I lay there, and the music was just kind of washing over me, I imagined I felt God's continual thoughts--toward me, to me--washing over me in the same way and lifting me just like the music, even as I lay there to go to sleep.  I love how the psalmist talks about the immensity of God's thoughts toward him while he is sleeping, and how when he wakes up he finds God still present with him.  It is as if he can put his own thoughts to rest and sleep soundly, because he knows he is surrounded by God's thoughts toward him.
     Even though our thoughts are small, God has put great thought into us.  "For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.  I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works..." (vv. 13-14).
     And even when we have lost the ability to understand our lives, the psalmist takes comfort in this: "O Lord, You have searched me and known me.  You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off.  You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways...Where can I go from Your Spirit?...If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall fall on me,' even the night shall be light about me" (vv. 1-3, 7, 11).

"Write Every Day Down"

This post was kind of inspired by Jason Upton's song "Write Every Day Down."  It said something that I had been wanting to hear for some time.  (Here's one video of the song--I was trying to find the one where he explains it, but couldn't.)  He says, basically, that there is a message in our days, in our lives, that if we let it, can tell the story of God. 

He talks about how, somehow it was significant for the Bible to include Abraham's failures; to include the fact that the apostle Matthew was a tax collector; that Moses had been a murderer as well as a deliverer.  Those parts of the story can't be ommitted, while we choose to keep the more "comfortable" parts.  The story God is writing is bigger than our concept of it.  Our attempts at rectifying our mistakes can often be just as misguided as the mistakes themselves; and they find redemption not in our ability to "straighten it out," but in God's ability to love us in the midst of our fallenness, and somehow use it for His purposes.  I'm not talking about not repenting; but trying on our own to fix our mess is naive at best, prideful at worst, and not real repentence. 

Thanks guys!  First post, short and sweet...