Lent day 10: worship

⁴One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.

⁵For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.

⁶Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

⁷Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!

⁸“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, Lord, do I seek.

 "I will sing and make melody to the Lord."
Truth is, Sundays are a mixed bag when you are a pastor.  
In many ways it is the most beautiful day of the week.  Everyone together, bringing their hopes, their joys, their pains and their pleas to God at the same time.
But there are those moments when I hear the lesson was boring and that this one is worshipping by going for a walk and someone practically got a black-eye in the fight that broke out during the Children's Message. How can I worship?




And then the organ hits a note and it doesn't matter at all that I can't sing.  I'm compelled to sing out because God is the air that moves through our lungs and needs to be sung out of our bodies.
Then everyone else does the same thing, and even in my distraction and preoccupation about the lesson that bored the class, I'm crying. All these people that I love so much reverberating the breath of God in this beautiful sound -- a melody to the Lord.
Who wouldn't want to live in the house of the Lord for ever, sheltered by God from the failures, criticisms and worries?

We can leave whatever baggage we carry around all week and just be us and be with a lot of other people who just need to breathe in God.

So much can happen in a week.  It is hard to remember a week later how good it feels to take that breath.  To hear those around us naming those moments when they glimpsed God's grace.  To hear their prayers for family and friends and their own needs.

We forget that no matter what craziness we are dealing with, somewhere in that hour we'll hear a note or a word, or see a face or a beautiful window and we'll gasp remembering we are breathing in God.  And we too will be like the psalmist who dreams to stay in the temple always.

See you in worship, breathing.