FaceDown In Worship
Over the last five months worship has become a huge part of my life. From the moment the Holy Spirit came to live in me there has been an overwhelming desire to worship Jesus. My eyes are opened and I am finally able to see the significance of what Jesus did for me on that cross. The words to the songs have begun to take on meaning and I can't get enough. To my utter and complete surprise, I have started praising God with my hands in the air just like all of those other freaks at my church. I understand now that worship should be a part of life, not just while singing on Sunday mornings. Worship music has become a huge part of my day everyday. I listen to it early in the morning when I wake up, while I'm running, while I'm sitting in Bold Bean drinking coffee and at night before I go to bed. But still, this isn't enough.
Worship should be constant and a part of everything I do. Worship is not just listening to worship music. It is also the relationships that I have, the work that I do, the scripture that I read, the walks through the neighborhood I take, the AA meetings that I go to, the food that I eat, the least of these that I feed on Saturday mornings, the money that I give to my church now that I have a job, everything. God is in everything in my life, so everything should bring me joy like the worship music does. Being conscious of this has brought an indescribable amount of happiness into my life. Life still has it's troubles and I'm not trying to imply that I'm happy 24/7 because I'm definitely not. But, seeing God in the little things in my life has made the troubles bearable and the sad, lonely, and angry times shorter and less frequent. I used to make jokes before I became a Christian about people being high on Jesus. Now I see that there really was truth in those jokes. The Holy Spirit is better than heroin, coke, or booze and there isn't even a hangover.
I am realizing now that there is another part of worship that I have never really thought about. The subject of submitting to God has come up in sermons and bible studies a lot over the last couple of months. I now see the value of outward signs of praise toward God, but what about outward signs of submission? I know that God loves the public expression of worship toward Him. Dancing and singing and raising my hands in praise are all awesome, but what about public expression of how huge and powerful He is? I have started reading a book by worship leader Matt Redman called FaceDown. In this book, he expresses the beauty of bowing face down in submission to God's beauty and power. After reading just the first couple chapters of this book, I found myself on my knees with my face to the floor a couple of times during a Weekend of Prayer and Worship we had at my church this past weekend. It was such an amazingly freeing experience just surrendering to God's awesome power. Of course I still love to outwardly show praise, but now I truly see the value of outwardly showing submission. If you have never found yourself FaceDown in the presence of God, I pray that you all have this experience. Below is a YouTube video for the worship song FaceDown by Matt Redman. As always, thanks for taking the time to read my Blog. Love Y'all!!!
