I am addicted to worship...

I have been around worship all of my life. I know the routine. When I was a kid Pastor Stone would strike a cord, shake his mullet, raise an eyebrow and sing the first few cords of a great ballad to the Lord. But I didn't appreciate worship then. It was a spectacle, something that made church go by faster. Back then, the only fun times we had in worship was when Pastor Stone broke out the songs that included hand motions or told stories or contained rapping...I am positive that everyone loves a little "Whose Side Are You Leaning On" or "Walking in The Footsteps of His Faith" every once in a while. I still sometimes break out rapping "you see its the letter of the law that shows you the flaw where in the nature of the flesh you fall..." Or there was the classic worship charade...getting "slain in the spirit." It was typical, it was easy and it got the teachers every time. You see chapel was before math, and math before English, and English before social studies and so on an so forth. Well, the best way to "trick" your teachers was to make it appear you had gotten "slain in the spirit" during chapel. It consisted of this: break up into a circle of friends, draw straws for who gets to be "slain", proceed to speak fervently in tongues, and then after a rousing invocation, gently push the receiver back catching them gently and sliding them onto the floor. After this was done it was simple. The person who got "slain" simply had to remain in a state of unconsciousness for a long duration of time. However long they could stay still and incoherent was how long they got to skip out of class. If you were lucky you missed math, even luckier you missed math and then half of English [but those were the best actors among us mind you]. Oh yes...we were rebels...in our own very special way.

So the moral of that story is simply to say I have been around worship a lot and a lot of worship has been around me. I know all the forms, I know what different hand postures mean, and I know what songs call for a bending the knee or jumping up and down. I could possibly right a book called "Worship for Dummies." I would say I am a worship connoisseur. I know the good worship times versus the bad ones. And that is the religious side of me. The non-religious side of me, the side that I am growing in more and more everyday cannot explain worship anymore. I can't fit it into a box or mold it into something I used to know. My mind has been shattered to any presupposition I have ever had about worship and as a result I have seen worship as the key to unlocking the glory of God in my life.

Tonight I was at a congregation meeting. I thought it was going to be just like any other congregation. We would get there, we would sit in the seats, we would worship, Pastor Norm would talk and we would leave...hopefully early. But tonight was different. I walked in and I found my seat, I hugged people, and then worship started. I moved up towards the front where more people were worshiping [because sometimes its good to experience that coorporate dynamic] and just began to lose myself in worship. And the spirit of the Lord fell so hard on us. I can't even explain because for the most part I was left speechless. All we could do was sing the song "Come and let your presence fill our praise, fill our praise, come and let Your presence fill this place....for You are the One we want to meet, Jesus shine through all the praises that we sing...ITS ALL FOR YOU, HERE I AM, HERE I AM." And we sang, and we worshiped, and we bowed, and we stood in the Holy presence of the Lord. And it was in that time when I thought to myself "There is absolutely no other place I would want to ever be then in worship with my Father."And all I could do was kneel because I am in love with Him. I don't love Him because He makes me feel good or He makes awesome things happen for me. I just love Him because He loves me...and He shouldn't love me, He has no reason too. But He does. Its unexplainable, its undeniable and its unforgettable and I can't help but to love Him back.