I have been resisting the urge to write my first blog post on here for the past couple months (and by “resisting the urge� I mean I have just been entirely too busy)
The first post on a new blog is always rough and the reason is this: if someone new visits your blog, they are most often going to do one of two things. The first would be that the person will read your most recent blog post and then, if so inclined, the person will begin to move back to the previous post and then the post before that and so on until boredom hits. The other thing that the typical blog-reader will do is go back to the very first post that you’ve written and work his or her way forward from there. The result of this is generally that the first post you ever write ends up being the one that is most often first read by a new visitor to the site. The most recent post is always changing but the first post will always be the first post.
SO, if you are one of those people who has visited my blog and gone back to the very first post I’ve written to start here, I welcome you and I hope that you will stick with me. I would like to invite you to walk through some craziness that I’m pretty sure the Holy Spirit has in store for me over the next months.
Now, what in the world to fill the remainder of this post with?
I have had way too many quiet times with the Lord where I essentially sit there and ask Him to speak to me for 30 minutes before finally giving up, having really gotten very little out of the time. However, I think that just recently, I’ve found a new way to do life with Jesus that is really changing my Holy Spirit times.
Like many of the things that Dad teaches me, this one was extremely simple. It is something that He’s been showing me over the past few weeks but I only really realized what was happening this past weekend. A few weeks ago, I got a few new worship albums. Now, I’m really kind of crazy about music and I really like listening to new bands, formulating opinions on them, reading deeply into the lyrics, and letting powerful music give me chills. Thus, I’ve never really been that into worship music because honestly, I just find most of it to be pretty cheesy and find that most of it lacks creativity and unique musicianship. However, the cd’s that I recently got are Consumed and Come Away by a group of spiritually gifted musicians called JESUS CULTURE. The music is amazing. It is powerful. It is creative and impassioned in a way that I’ve never really heard before. Check out one of my fav’s here:
Both of these CD’s have been getting some serious play time for me recently. I’m not even just playing them when I want to worship though. I turn them on between listening to Mumford & Sons and listening to the new Lupe Fiasco CD. The music that these two groups are making is just awesome.
So what has been awesome to see is that, when I change the music in my car to Jesus Culture and I start doing what I do with music (reading deeply into the lyrics, letting powerful music give me chills, etc.) the holy spirit begins to move! The simple act of singing praises to Jesus and dwelling on lyrics that express worship to our God, the one and only wise king, increases my awareness of the Holy Spirit.
Through this music, Jesus has been invading my life over the past couple weeks. He’s been showing up in places where I don’t even expect Him. I’ll hop back into my car after buying a new tire for my bike and BAM! I turn one of these albums on and feel the invite of the Lord to truly worship Him! I roll over in the morning to turn on something (I always turn on music right when I wake up) and decide to listen to a little Benjamin Dunn. Again, the invite of the Holy Spirit is right there to sing praise to Him.
So that’s been really cool. And what has been even more cool is to see how much I enjoy worshiping Jesus throughout my days. It doesn’t have to be an EVENT each day for me to sit down and have 30 min of worship time. I’ve started feeling the invitation to worship numerous times throughout the day and, as I become more excited about WORSHIP, God is showing me that I don’t really even need the music. The invitation is there at every moment of every day to spend moments letting my mind dwell on how marvelous He is, how potent His love is, or how rich his grace is.
For me, the idea that I could worship God at all times throughout my day was something I definitely KNEW. However, it hasn’t been until the last few weeks that I feel like I’ve really LEARNED what a lifestyle of worship could look like! And don’t get me wrong, I’m far from living a life consumed by worship for Jesus, but I feel like I’m on the trail of something overwhelming and I want more more more of it. I’m ready to be overwhelmed.
