Estimated reading time: 4 minute(s)
I think I recognized a slight change in me tonight. Something that I have intellectually grasped for quite a while, but perhaps not till recently have I really lived it out.
I was in the bathroom, prior to our gig tonight, and I had a sort of flashback. Instantly, I was whisked back to many a bathroom, in many a church building (or other location). It was minutes before the event for the night, and I was alone in the bathroom, praying. It was a great time for me to connect with God one last time before we got up to represent him on stage wherever we were. I remembered sincere wishes that whatever we did that night would be fruitful. Our words, our songs, our voices, our instruments – everything we had any sort of control over – would carry the truth of God’s love to the hearts of everyone listening. I would ask him best I knew how to ensure that what we were doing would be worth it. For them. For us. For Him.
And then tonight I realized, the thought of doing that wasn’t in my mind, nor had it been for months. That is no longer my practice before any singing event.
Have I lost touch with God? Have I forgotten the significance of every opportunity to share our music and the life-giving truth of God’s word (mixed in with our songs)? I don’t think so. Actually, in some ways it might be almost the opposite.
You see, over the past while, I have been learning to live every day with Jesus. Not in a building, or at a service, or at a special time of the day, or the week. I have been learning to do everything, “whether in word or in deed”, with Jesus. No, I don’t add his name, or an exclamatory, “Hallelujah!”, or, “Praise The Lord!” to every sentence I utter. I mean, Jesus is with me. For everything.
I mean everything.
When I go to sleep, he’s there. We chat. When I wake up, he’s there. Usually, we chat. When I take a shower, he’s there. When I eat breakfast, he’s there. When I am at work, he’s there. When I am with my family, he’s there. When we are playing Lego Creator, he’s there.
The hardest part to grasp is when I blow up at my kids for something too small for such a response, he’s there. And he doesn’t leave. When I am angry with Jen, he’s there. If bad thoughts are floating through my head, he’s still there. He is not scared away by my sin.
He’s always there. Always.
What I am learning to do is not evoke his presence at special times and places, but to be in a constant dialogue with him. At high points, and low points, and everywhere in between. And, to listen to his Spirit in me. If God had wanted me to pray tonight before the concert, I think that would have been “on my heart”. Otherwise, I trust Him to “always be working”, and everything I say and do is something he can use. Not just from a stage. Not only when I use words that include Jesus own name, or something else you can find in the Bible.
Always. Everywhere. All the time.
Do you get it? I think I am starting to, and it was a very cool, enlightening moment! It is theory now implemented. What I saw tonight was not a new idea, it was that Jesus has slowly integrated it into the way I live! Those are cool moments.
Sometimes we try so hard to live spiritual lives that we end up missing real life. We miss the fact that the Kingdom is right here, right now. Jesus said he would send his Spirit to live IN us. Always. That’s just incredible. And I think I am understanding that more and more.
It’s not bad to pray before some public event. It’s certainly not bad to just pray. But I have even learned to not use that word, as it implies something magical and other. “Praying” is not magical. It can be just a conversation – that never stops – with the Living God. We have constant audience with Him, because he’s always there. With every one of us. Listening, watching, going through our lives with us. He will never “leave us or forsake us”.
Never sure is a pretty cool word.
Live today with Jesus. For real with Jesus. Not just quiet times or prayer times. Every time. And see how freeing is the reality of his presence. Every day. In every way.