In the Unknown--God Makes Himself Known

So often our worship is dependent on our perception of how God is working in our lives. With human minds and emotions, we limit God's glory to our own understanding.
Scriptures states that no one can fathom the greatness of God but yet we are guilty of trying to compare God's greatness to what we can see, feel, and understand.
When God is doing great things in our lives we sing out louder, we lift our hands and hearts more boldly to Him, but when seasons of pain and heartache arrive, our worship fades and our hearts go into hiding.

God is Still Great
God is Still Working
God is Still in Control

Just because our minds can't understand the journey, just because our hearts are burdened with the unknown, doesn't mean that God is not still working.
We should sing louder, lift our hands higher and give God even greater praise in the unknown, because it is in those moments that God's greatness surpasses our own understanding.  In the unknown God becomes known--not by our own understanding but in God's greatness does He work all things together.

I don't want my worship to be dependent on what I know of God.  I want my worship to be for all that I don't know, all that I can't fathom--God is God.  Worship is praising God for the unknown-for His great mystery and wonder.

There are areas in my life that I have no control over--my heart longs and yearns but empty handed I stand.  I choose to lift those empty hands in worship to God and not because I demand anything in return from Him but because His ways are greater than my own.
I lift my hands because I would rather be consumed by God's wonder than my own fear.  I want a life beyond what I can fathom--I want a life designed by God.
I lift my hands to be consumed by His wonder and hope--because it is in the unknown that God makes Himself known to me.

Is Your Faith More than Just a Feeling?

But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.  They said to you, "in the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions." It is those who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.  But you beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

Jude 1:17-21

Is Your Faith More than Just a Feeling?

I sometimes wonder why aspects of our faith has seasons.  Why is it that in some seasons you can feel the hand of God so firmly on your life, you can hear his voice speaking boldly, and you feel surrounded by His peace and presence; and then in other seasons it feels as if God has lifted His hand from us, and gone silent?

I went through an amazing season of feeling God so strongly in my life and then this past week it felt as if He disappeared.  I cried out to God, pleaded for a response and yet it felt that struggle after struggle occurred and God was no where to be found.  He went silent and I kept crying, kept seeking Him, kept pleading for His presence....and then He spoke.

I felt a gentle nudging to go for a run tonight (my runs are usually when God speaks to me most), I begrudgingly put on my shoes, grabbed my prayer mix, and started running....He spoke to me, words so sweet, so strong, "I am here--I will never leave you or forsake you, I am not gone."

I just wanted to share this because often we feel that God lifts his hand from us because of something we did wrong or because of a sin we have in our lives and while these are both reasons for why we can feel an absence from God's presence, it is not the only reason.  Sometimes God simply wants to know if our Faith is more than just a feeling.

Faith has to be in the midst of the chaos and the adversity.  When we face our greatest fears, our biggest disappointments, and our hardest falls---when our emotions tell us to give up or give in---is our faith greater than our emotions?  Faith has to be the driving force that says, "I keep going, I keep running the race."

Has God placed a desire deep into your heart?  A passion that overwhelms your soul?
You become so excited, confident, and overwhelmed to live those desires and passions out but it seems that obstacle after obstacle occurs, or that someone has torn you down or discouraged you from what you know to be true. You begin to question if what you felt and believed was truly from God.

God sometimes goes quiet in our lives because He wants to know if we still hear His voice the strongest even when the voices of those around scream loudly inside our heads.  He is teaching us, preparing us, working in us, so that we are not so easy to give up on what He has spoken into us.  He is building the foundation of our faith to be unshakable.

Is your Faith more than an emotion?
Do you still believe the promises God whispers in your ear even when the world is screaming lies of defeat to you?

Faith has to be more than an emotion
Faith does not fade
Faith perseveres even when all feels lost.

Letting Go...

Have you ever held on to something so tightly?
You enter into your worship with God holding on to that emotion somehow thinking that you will get God's attention and favor if you worship Him while holding on to it.   Almost as if you are tricking God by saying, "Here I am Lord--Oh, and while I'm here---Do you see this?  It's important to me--Please Lord answer my prayer."  God asks us to lay it down and our white knuckles show that we haven't let go in a very long time.  God says very lovingly, "I want you to lay it down at my feet--its safe there--now stand tall and hold out your hands and worship."  Our song is timid at first as we try to sing and look down at God's feet.  God stops us, lifts our head, looks into our eyes with love and says, "it's okay my child--keep singing."  Each verse get a little louder and stronger as our eyes close and our hands lift and God's presence consumes us.  We feel overwhelmed, full, content, complete; we open our eyes to see God standing in front of us saying, "I love your worship but I desire your heart, I desire your empty hands because it is only then that I can fill them with my love and blessings for you."

When we take the focus off our problems, our emotions, our needs and lay them at God's feet, it is then and only then that God can fill us and renew us.  God needs empty hands so that there is room for His blessings.

True worship leaves us so full that when we turn to leave, we also leave what we had held so tightly to at God's feet.

There is no more room because God has filled us.