Friday, March 21, 2008

Denying the Obvious

(This is something I wrote in my journal a while back after a service at a youth camp in 2005.)

I caught myself tonight being so caught up in the rythm and energy of the songs that I forgot to truly worship. I asked myself, "What is in my heart? What words come from my mouth so that I may truly glorify God without using someone else's words?
Too often we let ourselves get swept away with the emotion of the moment that we forget the reason why we are where we are. Tonight's message talked about the Isrealite noise of celebration. Sometimes songs are great because they help us express ourselves in ways we wouldn't be able to otherwise, but at the expense of learning for ourselves how to truly talk to God. If all I ever did was sing love songs to my wife and never just expressed in my own words how I felt about her, what would happen? It would be cool for a while, but then it would just be noise. My most intimate moments are when I sit with her in my arms telling her how much I love her, how beautiful she is and how she makes me feel when we are close together, so close we can touch one another. Whispering in the silence, I tell her how much she means to me, how she completes me, we hear each other's heart beat. It's then she knows our love is stong and she feels secure.
So the question remains, are we in "pursuit of God" or is just an expression that sounds poetic. In reality we are just in pursuit of the emotional experience, "the shout." It must truly be an expression of our heart. God talked to Elijah not in the whirlwind, the earthquake or the fire, but in the sound of a low whisper. Are we allowing the noise to leave us so we can hear God's heartbeat and listen to his voice?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I really like this analogy. I don't think I've ever read this feeling put into words... It's like it shed a new light into understanding and it really gave me something to think about!