Worship

This post has been a while in my thoughts, sparked by COTH.

Monday night at COTH was one of the most amazing worship experiences of my life. It was truly the first time that I had the opportunity to gather together with people who truly desired to worship God with all their thoughts and energy. As we were singing the feelings of the presence of the Holy Spirit were incredibly strong. Sometimes when I sing, or read a certain passage I get this feeling, an intense joy, almost like a chill, lasting a few seconds then going away. This was constant during the evening. It was really almost impossible to describe the emotions and thoughts that went through my head but I didn't want them to stop. This wasn't even rock music that the other teens would be so "into it"; these were old hymns mixed with some contemporary, but all of it respectful and purposeful.

Fast-forward to the next Sunday: I'm back from COTH and in church on Sunday morning. We are singing and wonder of wonders, it's three of the same songs in row that we sang at COTH. We sang them, and it was beautiful, but terrible. The music was perfect, there were well trained voices everywhere, but there was no strength or emotion put into it. The faces were dead of feeling, and the people around me were putting words into sounds, but not worshiping. I wanted to cry. But then I thought. What do the people around me have to do with anything? Does their lack of worship have anything to do with whether or not I give my whole self to the moment? No! I determined then that no matter if the people around me chose to honor God or not, I would. And immediately I got that intense joy again. I remember the quote from Eric Liddel when asked why he ran the way he did, and in that wonderful Scottish accent he replied "because when I run; I feel his pleasure". That is why when we feel worship truly, we feel this way, because we are doing what we are meant to do and God smiles on it.

The next day, was Monday. Monday afternoons I work, with a half hour drive to get there. I sing on the way, with radio or without. Well, again as I sang these songs, not remembering even what they were, I felt that pleasure of God, like I could never be sad or angry again. Whenever I experience that it truly makes me wish that I could never do anything else. When so much fulfillment can got simply gotten by singing the praises of God, why do we need to go to the movies or to amusement parks? Christians, imagine then what it will be like when we get to heaven and 10,000 years will pass and we will be simply worshiping all the time. It is indeed a good thing that we will have new bodies, for will our old ones be able to contain the euphoria thta comes with an eternity of worship as we were meant to?