Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Penguin Worship



"My heavenly Father likes to hear me sing as well as those who can sing better than I can. My Father likes to hear the crow as well as the nightingale- Billy Bray

If only I sang as beautiful as a crow cawed.

Not only do I sing like a wounded penguin, I also dance like one.  I can only hit two notes: painful and annoying. Not only do I get people peeking over their shoulders at me, trying to figure out the source for their headache, I have had little kids hear my singing and cover their ears. When the worship leader encourages the body to 'shout to the Lord', I shout as loud as I can, "I love you, Jeeeeesssssssssssssssuuuuusssssss!" If I can shout, clap and celebrate a touchdown or a knockout loudly, then I figure I better be twice as loud in my expression for the Great Lord Jesus.
 I also aint got no rythm, hey, I cant even spell rtythm without using spell check or dictionary.com.  There was one time I was asked stop clapping during worship because I threw off the rhythm of those around me. I also have missed my hands while clapping and hit the kid sitting beside me in the head.
Early in my Faith, I prayed to God that I wanted to 'dance like David'.  And I did.  Needless to say that day was pretty memorable for me and for the 200 or so people that witnessed me create a one man mosh pit. Out of curiosity, I looked up the definition of danced (raqad) and learned that it meant to stamp, to spring about wildly. I learned early on in my walk that God is Faithful to answer Biblical prayers.

Each one of these incidents, stick with me (and others I am sure) because I can recall how Holy Spirit had stirred me up, how He had challenged me to step out of my idea of cool and to be a fool for Him.  The back and forth in my mind about if I was trying to please my God or do things for show.  I also recall how flushed I felt after some of the incidents when people I didn't know glared their disapproval at me.

But the most memorable time of worship for me was with my family.  It was a day in which Naomi came back from a weekend at her dad's and she was tired, whiny and snotty to everyone.  It was particularly frustrating for Nikki, as her excitement to see her daughter was stolen by the words of the bio-parents being hissed at her by her 5 year old daughter.

I remember it very clearly, Logan, Naomi and Nikki were sitting on the couch and I saw the negativity jump from Naomi to Nikki to Logan and eventually to me.  I got hot at the thought of how each one of us was giving away the Joy we should be having with the family altogether.  I threw up my arms in disgust and prayed angrily in the Spirit as I walked outta the room.  And then Holy Spirit touched me and led me to sing the chorus of  Blessed Be Your Name.  By time I got back into the room Nikki was singing and a smile had appeared on her face.  Naomi and Logan joined in shortly after and before we were done, each one of us was smiling and singing praise to God.  It was amazingly beautiful, for our hearts and Spirits to be in unison as we as a family, shook off the slop of the enemy and put on the Joy of the Lord. Individually and collectively, we overcame our attitudes and chose to worship the God who is deserving of all praise no matter what circumstance.

4 comments:

David said...

Jesus! Blessed be your name!

Wow - powerful, Dave. Anyone who has a family; especially a blended family knows those moments. Interesting how your prayer was not the answer; no it was worship to our glorious King.

I have to admit, I was reading and identifying with your worship experiences, but when I read "Blessed Be Your Name" I too, began to worship the King. If you are reading along, why don't join me in worshipping our wonderful King.

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Joyce Lighari said...

I could identify with this so much. I was thinking about a conversation I had with a friend. She is also Norwegian. She asked me if I could clap right. I told her no. I said I always have to really watch closely to others to get the clap right. She said me too. She said I am on the worship team but they won't let me clap unless I'm really careful. We concluded that much of it had to do with being Norwegian.

Tony C said...

Thank God you are back my friend! It's stories like this that you share and tempt me to drive to the Midwest and hang out with you and the family...just to experience the Joy!

I love you man and would gladly sing praises to Him with you any time!

~ Jan ~ said...

Dave, I just have to say, I love your sense of humor. You always seem to have a way of making me laugh even when I don't want to smile. Thanks.

Wow, I just love the chain of events that the Holy Spirit uses to edify, confirm, comfort and witness to each and every one of us.

First of all, Dave, you tell the story of how a bad situation, due to your positive reaction, brought peace your family, giving value and worth to God. Amazing, your choosing God's way in response to a negative circumstance was as much of an act of worship as singing praises to His name. I love it.

Then, David identifies with your worship experience, and shares a portion of the lyrics to the song, Blessed Be Your Name. After reading them, I realized that this song is echoing what I have always felt true faith is. When there seems to be no earthly answer to our solution and God's manifestations aren't what we had hoped for, and we still choose to believe, that is the truest form of faith anyone could offer to God and the purest form of faith God could ever ask of us. Hmmm, I just realized, that in itself is an act of worth-ship.

Well, my interest was really peaked by then, so, I go to YouTube to pull up the song with lyrics and begin to worship as well. I listened to the song several times before looking at who posted the video. It was BrotherEarl44. Underneath the info he supplied, concerning the video, he quotes Psalm 113:2, "Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forever more".

I looked up Psalm 113 and here is the portion of scripture I had highlighted, sometime ago in the past, which is even more pertinent now than ever before.

5 Who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high.

7 He raises up the poor out of the dust and lifts the needy out of the dunghill;

8 That He may set them with the princes, even with the princes of His people.

All I can say is, my mouth is dry and my circumstances are pretty stinky right now but I have a promise to hold onto in my situation. I wait for Him to lift me up, dust me off and honor me for having chosen Him, in spite of the fact that I have to wear a clothespin on my nose and mens' hip boots while in the dunghill - I just hope the boots come in pink.

Be blessed,
~Jan~