There is something about a new year, whether it be a new school year or the turning of a calendar page to a new month, that can fill us with anticipation and excitement and plans.
I know myself well and know that it is futile to make those resolutions that I am sure to be excited over and watch the excitement fade in a very short time. The New Year then becomes a fresh reminder of failure. Same song, new refrain.
I don’t like to fail.
I don’t think I am alone. I think I am becoming more willing to take risks, but my strong avoidance of New Year’s Resolutions tells me that I may still be hiding from failure.
But what if I told you there was a New Year’s Resolution that promises a guaranteed success? It has nothing to do with weight loss or eating habits or exercise or self improvement. In fact it has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with God.
What if this was the year that you committed to knowing him more?
No matter what.
What if we resolved to ask him for more of himself in our lives?
Everyday.
It’s not a program of do’s and do’s and rule’s and rule’s.
But it’s a desperation for more of him.
What if this were the year that we make desperation our resolve?
‘God, I am desperate for you. For more of you. For your goodness and kindness and greatness. For your gentleness and your wildness. I want you.’
Could we make that our prayer?
I can guarantee that we may not be able to dictate how our year turns out and we can’t expect to control the outcome, but I can guarantee that it will be a ride, that in the end, and maybe with a few year’s perspective behind us, we will not regret taking.
In our current society, I have found that children are considered a blessing if you have the requisite one or two and then done, but the responses to much more than that can be varied. I have four, a small or large number, depending on your perspective. My fourth was celebrated by some and barely acknowledge by others. It all depends on perspective.
In biblical times, fertility was seen as a blessing and infertility as a curse. Blessings were tied to doing things ‘right’ and curses were seen as ‘obviously, you have some unforgiven sin in your life and that is why ‘this’ is or is not happening to you’. This type of response still happens today, but that is a topic for another day. Today my heart is pondering Zechariah and Elizabeth.
Elizabeth uses the word ‘reproach’ to describe her state in her community. The word reproach implies that she was an object of disgrace, that she was blamed for her infertility, and that she was criticized by her community. This is one of our few insights into Elizabeth’s heart. God’s own words assures us that she and Zechariah were blameless and upright and kept all the laws of God. We can learn a lot about their hearts in that one statement.
Misunderstood. I would use that word to describe Elizabeth’s place in her community. She knew in her heart what God said about her, but she had to hear with her ears what her community said about her. That is a difficult place to be and it can either grow your faith or grow your bitterness. You get to decide.
Being misunderstood is a part of this life.
So how do we maneuver being misunderstood with the truth of who we are in Christ?
That is a question we must address as we move forward in this walk of life. I believe it has to become an internal tension we must grow to accept because the truth of the matter is that we will not always be understood.
We will be misunderstood.
What we do with it will shape our character.
We can defend ourselves.
We can be silent.
We can put up a wall.
We can protect ourselves.
But what if we did this instead: we accept the misunderstandings others have about us then we ask the Lord if there is any truth in the misconceptions about us, and finally, most importantly, we lay the truth of God’s word over the misunderstanding and let the word of God determine our course of action.
Sometimes it’s being secure in the truth that we are doing exactly what the Lord has asked of us. Sometimes it’s speaking the truth in love with grace. Sometimes it’s letting go of the priority we place on another person’s perception about us.
But mostly it’s about trusting God’s heart towards us and being secure in the knowledge that he is for us.
He is for you. You can trust his heart because his heart is good towards you.
This time of year fills me with a sense of awe and wonder.
It’s the time of year that I choose to deeply ponder the coming of Christ in flesh. The reminders are all around me; the house is decorated for the month long ‘birthday party’. The city streets in our rural communities have their wreaths attached to the light poles reminiscent of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.
One of the things that I wonder about though, is this: ‘Did Mary have a wonderful life?’ She was the one chosen to carry and birth and raise the son of God. Religions revere her, some even pray to her as if she is a holy icon. She was just a girl. A girl with a heart of faith and trust and submission. She was chosen, but it was not through a ‘pageant’ where the winner won the right to carry the son of God. Basically, it was not about her, it was about God and his promised covenant and it was the right time.
‘How can this be?’ was her question to the angel who bore the news. It was not a question of disbelief. It was a question with an underlying tone of acceptance. Imagine what our lives would look like if instead of questioning God on whether he knows what he is doing or demanding a ‘sign’ that what he is saying is true, we simply believed. We simply trusted.
One of the many truths he whispers to us is this: he is for us. What if we said, ‘How can it be?’ instead of ‘How can I know this is true?’ Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist had a heavenly visitor as well, but his response is remarkable different, but the significance can be easily missed. He wanted to intellectually wrap his brain around the angel’s news rather than embrace it with a heart of faith.
It could be the large age difference between Zechariah and Mary that birthed the two very different responses. We could justify Zechariah’s response by saying that he probably sought God for years on this very subject (the desire for a child), and years passed with the answer of ‘no’. I understand where he is coming from. I think we all have petitioned God for something or someone and the answer we receive is not the deeply desired ‘yes’, but the deeply feared ‘no’.
Mary, a young woman, not hardened by the burdens and seasons of life, had the faith of a child. A faith we are all called to have. A faith that can only come from the Father. Even that is amazing! We don’t have to stir up this faith on our own, we simply have to believe and let him build our faith. No matter our age.
Do you think Zechariah ever doubted the Lord’s goodness and ways again? He had more than nine months to wrestle with his need for ‘reassurance’, all the while seeing with his own eyes the Lord’s plan unfolding–whether he believed the Lord or not. Could he have been bursting to share with others what God had done for him and Elizabeth?
But I think there is a bigger picture here than what we see on the surface.
It wasn’t about Zechariah and Elizabeth at all.
It wasn’t about Mary at all.
It wasn’t about the key players in the Christmas story.
It was about God and his plan to redeem the world.
To redeem you and me. And that is the greatest gift.
But even then it’s not about us.
What would happen if we changed our perspective on answered prayer or unanswered prayer, whichever way you want to look at it, and saw not through the lens of receiving blessing, but we saw through the lens of what God wants in the overall big picture of this world, and how he wants us to bless him, through it all.
Through all the yes’ and all the no’s.
We can turn it all into praise.
We can accept, with a faith filled heart, his promise that he is for us, asking, ‘How can it be?’, and then watch the Lord’s promise unfold in ways that take out breath away.
Last week I wrote a letter to all the worshipers of the Lord everywhere. This week I write a letter to all my fellow worship leaders who are leading God’s people in worship week after week.
Dear Worship Leader,
You are leading so you must serve.
God has placed you in a place of leadership and you must serve your people. You must love them. You must care more about their experience than your musical ability.
You must take charge and then you must let go and let the Holy Spirit lead you and guide you. It’s not about you. It’s not about your music or your riffs. It’s about God and his people meeting and you must, you must get out of the way. I know. Because I am a worship leader and I have screwed up and missed God’s message by getting in the way of what he wants to do.
The temptations are great. We are tempted by pride. We are tempted by whether people are engaged. We are tempted by compliments or the lack thereof. We are tempted by our musicality or the musicality of the people on our teams.
But when we are humble and hungry for the new work of God in each moment of each Sunday or Saturday or whatever day you stand before your church and lead, we can touch the presence of God. Then we need to step back and let God touch the people you are serving.
It’s not about how many new songs you can write or sing or introduce. It is about letting a song get into the fiber of your church and let them own it. It’s about letting it become their cry to the Lord. It’s about letting the song become their heart’s anthem. It’s also knowing when to retire a song so it doesn’t become words sung by rote memory. It’s about knowing the musical ability of your church so that you pick songs that are singable so that more people can be bold enough to engage. It’s about their experience with the Holy Spirit moving in your midst. We as worship leaders can help or hinder that.
If I may?
It’s not about us. As much as we are in the spotlight, we must aim the spotlight to the One who we are worshiping. So we must stay aware of our own weaknesses and tendencies and counter them with humility and hunger. There are times that I write ‘S.H–S.H’ on my hand before I hit the stage on a Sunday morning, especially if I have been in battle with my pride and insecurity that week. Stay humble. Stay hungry.
We are all worshipers, whether we realize it or not, we all worship something or someone. We were designed that way, and we will fill our spirit’s with something or someone until we surrender to the living God.
Worship is all about relationship. It’s about relationship with the Holy God who needs nothing from us yet longs to know us and be known by him. So, first, as a worshiper of the one true God and as a worship leader in my local church body, I want to encourage you with some truths I have learned along the way…
You delight God when you bow your heart before him.
You delight God when you bow your body before him.
You delight God when you sing a new song.
You delight him when you remember all he has done in your life.
You delight him when you choose thanksgiving over fretting.
You delight God when you obey him.
You delight him when you join together in unity with other believers in one voice to sing of his goodness and mercy.
You delight him when you allow yourself to be overcome by the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit and you lay your inhibitions down and care only what your God thinks of you.
You delight God.
You delight him when you look up to him with hands open ready to receive whatever he has for you.
You delight him when you lead out in song of praise to him.
You delight him when you choose his ways over your ways.
You delight him when you seek to understand what he wants from you in worship/life.
You are his delight.
You are.
He sings over you.
As you sing of your delight in him, he is singing of his delight over you.
He dances all around you.
As you engage in a physical expression of praise, he dances with you.
You delight him when your mind and your spirit is wholly engaged in spirit and in truth.
You are his delight.
So, my fellow worshipers, worship is much more than congregational singing, it is a way of life. Worship is not static. Worship involves movement, literally and figuratively. Move your heart closer to him through your daily choice to obey him. As you do, you will be changed, never to be the same again.
2 Corinthians 1:9-10: ‘Indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.’
If we ever question anything about our past or our circumstances, we merely need to read this passage. It is the universal answer to the question of ‘why?’. At one time I spent an inordinant amount of time asking pestering the Lord with my questions of ‘why?’. I was rather demanding. Then I grew petulant when all I heard was silence.
Most of my ‘why?’ questions have been about other people. For some strange reason (sin) we hurt each other. Some people hurt more easily and some people are quicker to throw the spear. I find it agonizing when it is a fellow believer. I find it heart wrenching when I realize I just threw the spear. I find it difficult when my heart runs straight to embracing an offense.
What a fine line we walk! People are given the amazing privilege of reflecting God to the world around us and yet we fail everyday. We are to look for ‘fruit’. We are to live at peace and in unity with each other. We put so much pressure on ourselves and each other.
I know this Christian life was meant to be lived out with people, but it is so hard and so distracting. For instance: People are way more visible than God. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t actually seen God, I see his people. Unfortunately, I don’t see them through the veil of the righteousness of Jesus—I see them through my own sin-scaled eyes that are slowing, painfully being made new. Oh, that I would have the eyes to see as clearly as he does. Unfortunately, I don’t. I really don’t. I think I see fruit. I think I see evidence of God working in someone’s life. But when tragedy comes, when betrayal comes, it is difficult to look at their lives and believe that I saw clearly.
‘But God? I ask, it’s people that prove that your plan works. It’s people committing their lives to you. It’s people growing in you. It’s people committing their time to their local church. It’s about the people, right?’
No. It’s about God and him fulfilling his purpose.
When I am hurt by people I can run to this verse in 2 Corinthians and transfer my hope in people to hope in him.
It’s about setting our hope on God. Setting my hope on God. He has said he will deliver us. Do I believe it? Do I look for it? Do I believe that he raises the dead—not just raised the dead, past tense, but raise the dead, present tense? Do I really believe that he is powerful to take any situation and make it into something that brings him glory?
I have to or I would throw in the towel of following where he leads and where he goes. It’s the only answer that makes sense–it’s the only answer that satisfies the perpetual ‘why?’.
It’s about God—setting my hope on him—the author of my faith and the finisher of my faith.
People disappointing me does not have to finish my faith. It only does if my hope is centered on people.
