(Rachel Brown and her husband, Pat, are dear friends who live in Atlanta, where Pat is on staff at Buckhead Church. She’s also the daughter of Michael and June Carter, two of our dearest friends. Michael is one of our elders at TPCC, and June is our office manager. Rachel wrote the following beautiful account of an amazing experience she had in worship with her son, Ethan. I think you’ll be as touched as I was. Enjoy! Then check out the song at the bottom.)
Right now my spirit is welling up with great joy, gratitude, and praise. My mother’s heart is proud, humble, and completely blessed by my four year old son, Ethan. Over the past few weeks, I’ve tried to be more intentional with my three precious kids, teaching them about Jesus and how they can be a lover of God and worship him. Several times this week I’ve resisted the temptation to allow my kids to watch TV in the morning. Instead we decided to turn on our worship music. We have had a great time jumping around spinning and singing songs. Honestly, it’s a great break from Bunny Town songs on Disney Channel. If you have kids you will know what I’m talking about.
We are a family deeply moved by music and have a love for all different genres. My three precious kids didn’t have a choice to love music! God has created their daddy with the love of music and great musical gifts.
We were deeply moved by “How He Loves,” a song we sang at Buckhead a few Sunday’s ago. I couldn’t wait to download this song on my IPod and plug it into my ears and just worship. Pat and I both had eyes welling up with tears and hearts full of unexplainable emotions when we heard this song. For Pat it was a mixture of emotion; he has not led worship for almost two years, now, and such a great love is deeply missed. His heart was moved by the love of God; for me, a funny moment with God. I humorously asked God why I have such a heart of worship but such a horrible voice. My humorous prayer is that all the people on earth that can’t sing will be HIS most gifted singers in heaven. If I can’t sing beautifully on earth, I’d better be able to sing in heaven! I think that you get the picture. We love worship!
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Tense Truth: For every big answered prayer you experience, you can find some trivial something God chose not to say “yes” to. For every simple request He responds to, you can find some issue of global significance or suffering that He appears oblivious to. Regardless, the Kingdom of God moves forward on that praying of its people, and when we don’t ask, we don’t receive.
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Did you ever dissect a rose or a tulip or something in biology class? You know – where you learned about those parts, like the pistil, the anvil, the stirrup, the air ducts, the seaman, and all that stuff? Did the thought ever occur to you that no matter how interesting the inner understanding may be, what makes the flower beautiful is the whole?
A lot of people approach prayer the same way. They feel compelled to slice it, dice it, dissect it, analyze it. They ask “Why?” and “How?” questions a lot. I’ll confess, those kinds of thoughts rattle around in my head. My wife, the faith warrior, will talk about some simple thing the Lord wonderfully gave her, like a parking place or a sale at Kirkland’s or a thought to call somebody. And I’ll be thinking, “Okay, but really…” Or I’ll go off on a riff like I did last week about praying for the economy or gas prices (are they really slipping?) or the environment, and the whole time I’m opining, I’m thinking, “People are going to think I’m nuts.”
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Take a look at this exquisite photo. It was taken by a guy in the UK named Wez Smith. I found it yesterday, and remembered again what an amazingly beautiful world is that we live in.
Know what it is?
I’ll tell you in a minute.
Don’t you love how even the seeming imperfections of each petal all come together to form a beautiful whole?
How even the “rough edges” all come together in a symphony of striking color?
How whatever that seed part in the middle is called (I’m no botanist) suggests the amazing reproducible wonder of future life? Future potential? Even more beauty?
Figured out what it is yet, Mr. Green Jeans?
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I hate maintenance. This is in defiance to everything my father faithfully tried to instill in me. I want the dishes to morph into the dishwasher, the oil to change itself, and the lawn to live, but not grow. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to get a reminder in the mail that I had an appointment with a treadmill, about 11 electrodes, and a sadistic nurse with a razor and sandpaper. “Stress EKG.” Ha! I don’ need no stinkin’ treadmill to tell me I got stress.
It’s not about the treadmill, mind you. I get on one about five times a year, whether I need to or not. It’s about getting on the treadmill at the doctor’s office when I haven’t been on one at the gym in a while. I needed some time to work out before the exam so the exam wouldn’t make me look like I hadn’t been working out. Sort of like cleaning the house before the house cleaner comes.
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“I was saved at age 6, and Spirit-filled at age 9,” she said plaintively. “Now I don’t even know there is a God. How do I get my faith back?”
I blurted out an answer that distressed more than blessed. But I still think it’s true.
“You start by showing up.”
Human nature – at least my human nature – has a tendency to self-destruct in the areas where peace or healing or restoration or growth is concerned. How? By isolating. Withdrawing. Withholding or running away from the situation. The myth is that: [click to continue…]
