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Hiding Place

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You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word   Psalm 119:114

Today I came across a group of deer crossing the dirt road. At my first approach they have the amazing instinct to stay till, stay together and wait.

The deer seem to know how to respond to danger better than we do. They know they are where they belong, so when trouble comes they quickly find places to hide. hiding-deer-cropWhen we walk near to the Lord He becomes that place for us to be hidden in Him. His presence surrounds us and provides a shield so the enemy cannot know where to find us. That is not to say we won’t sometimes pass through difficulty, but that when suffering passes close our hearts can be safely sheltered in Him

Psalm 27:5 For he will hide me in his shelter
in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock

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Take My Life Worship session One

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Take my life and let it be – Consecrated Lord to Thee… Francis Havergal 1873

Hebrews 12:28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom thnew-alaska-pics-2_cropat cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe

 

As a worship leader myself I recognize my own tendency to push people. Sometimes I begin with a fast peppy song just to try and get people focused on church. I press people to clap, raise their hands or to say Amen, yet rarely have I paused to hush myself in the awesome presence of a Holy God. Rarely have I waited quietly till God sent the wind and the fire of the Holy Spirit. Francis Havergal had it exactly right when she began her now famous hymn with the words, “Take my life” Our worship is not just about having Jesus in our life, but it is about finding our life in Him. Until we offer our life, our worship will remain pretty superficial most of the time. When we ask God not only to take our life, but to ” let it be consecrated Lord to thee”, then He will truly begin to operate as both Lord and Savior of our life.

For those of you who haven’t read our about page, let me begin by saying that my wife and I serve as assistant pastors in a local Brazilian church. As Americans we find many things uniquely refreshing about some of the older customs from Brazil in our worship services. Though our Brazilian brothers and sisters are less than timely about when they enter the service, they retain the wonderful custom of pausing to kneel and dedicate themselves to the Lord upon their arrival. That kind of a sense of reverence and awe is also the very life and breath of our worship. From the times of Abraham to the Apostle John, the manifestation of the Holiness of God left them on their faces listening to what God had to say.

God wants us to be quick to hear and slow to speak. He does love to hear the voice of His children, but do we love to hear Him speak? Do we just rush to church, sing our three songs and go home checking our calendars for what new event we have to remember to include in our busy schedule? God is unchanging. God will not hurry to try and catch up with us as we run in circles. If we truthfully long to worship, we will discover that God is still truly seeking for us to fully yield in reverence and awe to Him!

From wings to heaven’s window

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But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint Isaiah 40:31

img_4551When God renews our strength He first gives us wings. Wings like eagles can soar far above our weakness and rest on the breathe of the wind. Even eagles do come to rest, and when we find our feet back on the ground God often fires off the starting gun for our race.

As a teen I ran on our track team. Thanks to a patient coach he allowed even slower runners like me to stay on the team if we came for the practices and finished our races. Though I never knew what it was to win a race, I learned a lot about running through the finish line.

I remember that on the first days of practice some of us would stumble near the end of the second mile, but we each found a way to make it to the end. That is when the temptation was overwhelming to throw ourselves down on the ground in exhaustion. But that seemingly well deserved rest was never allowed by our coach. He would be right there pressing us on saying. “Don’t stop yet guys! Walk it off! Walk it off!”

Tonight if you have run your heart out and feel that you have crossed some finish line, remember Isaiah’s message. You will not only ride with eagle’s wings and run without growing weary, but you will also walk and not faint. If weariness calls tonight to simply cast yourself down to the ground and say that you are through, hear the voice of Jesus my friend, “Don’t stop yet! Walk it off! Walk it off! p1020421There is still so much more more to come!”

He calls us in that moment to come up by His side to look out through heaven’s window and to see His horizon that stretches  far beyond our own finish line!