You Ask, I Answer, Take 9

Today's question is from my friend Faye, who asked:

What do you think about (or know about) flag worship?

Oh dear.  That's quite the question!

Flag worship.  That uniquely charismatic expression of worship involving dancing with brightly colored flags or banners.

Gut response?  Cheesy.  And also lovely.

I can tell you that the colors of the flags used in worship in charismatic churches are often (much like the colors of things in liturgical churches) representative of specific meanings and imagery.

I can tell you that at times my gut response is just what I said it was - this is cheesy!  I feel embarrased for the people up there dancing around with the flags.  I feel uncomfortable with their seemingly unfettered and unrefined worship.  But that response is absolutely all about me.

I can also tell you that there have been times when the colors and the motion and the unfettered and unrefined nature that makes me so uncomfortable has also given me pause, and spoken to deeper parts of my soul.  Where I have seen the unseeable and experienced worship in a different way because someone was dancing with a flag.  Where the noise, the symbolism, the colors have given rise to what Pete Greig described as "a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’" within my spirit.

I think it's totally a preference thing, and maybe a time and place thing.  I think that it requires a humility and sensitivity of spirit, to know the right time and place, and to be open to what God would teach and show you in the midst of that.  Not easy by any means, but totally worth aiming for.

(oh, and by the way, Faye doesn't blog very often, but when she does it's almost always worth reading and truly beautiful.  You should check her out at the link I posted above.)

One More from Benson

One last paragraph from "In Constant Prayer" by Robert Benson, that I wanted to offer up for consideration and discussion:

"One of the reasons it's hard for us to say the daily office is that on most days, prayer is more like weeding a flower bed for the third time this month than it is some divine and mystical experience.  The truth is that for most of the time - for all time, according to the ones that have gone before us - the office has a kind of mundane, everyday sort of feeling.  There is a blessed ordinariness to it.  The daily office is not called daily for nothing, you know.

There is a temptation for all of us to feel as though worship is not really worth much unless we are personally moved by it.  If we are not somehow emotionally touched, then our worship does not seem spiritual to us.  It helps to remember that liturgy is the work of the people, not the magic wand of God." 

(Robert Benson, In Constant Prayer, pg. 56-57)

I so relate to the temptation he mentions to feel as though worship is meaningless unless I am somehow emotionally moved by it.  As if my acts of devotion are worthless unless they carry a momentous emotional experience with them.  How easy it is for me to forget that the worship is not about me, at all, but about the one being worshiped. 

You Give and Take Away

I cried during worship at my dad's church this morning.  I don't think that has ever happened before.  I'm not actually sure I've ever cried during a worship service.  You have to understand that tears don't flow easily for me, even now, all these years removed from depression.

But this morning I cried.

This processing the loss of my job is a weird thing.

Yes, I see it as a blessing.  Yes, it also sucks.

But this morning, I cried.

The line that got me was one from a Matt Redman song that has long been one of my favorites.  It's a song I fell in love with during depression.  A song that somehow echoed the cry of my heart in those times.  The cry that said, "even in these really dark spaces you, Jesus, are still worthy to be praised."  It's a cry that is resonating deeply right now.

But the lyric that drew tears this morning was this:

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Because when I started this job, it was very much a gift from God.  And somehow, the ending of it is also very much in the timing of God.  And that is not always easy to reconcile.

And so I stood this morning as my brother led worship, and tried to sing, and settled for simply raising my hands and closing my eyes as tears came.

(Ironicly, if this had been a charismatic church that repeats a song a number of times as God moves through it, I'd have been in big trouble.  I'm fairly certain I would have moved from quiet tears, subtly swiped away as the song ended, to full out sobs, less easy to keep out of the line of view of those around me.)

You give and take away, and still, your name is blessed.

Daily 5 - Day 208

Today's Daily 5:

1. Lunch was provided at work today because of some training inservices that are going on for most of the staff this week.
2. Got a bunch of necessary stuff for work done today
3. had a few encouraging emails from friends
4. Supper at Mom and Dad's
5. Mom and Dad loaned me a car to drive from their house to the church service I attended tonight and back again and then Mom gave me a ride back home to Grandma's
6. Brian and Jenn Johnson from Bethel Church in Redding, California were leading worship at the service I went to tonight.  It was fantastic to just worship unreservedly like that for a while.
7. Ran into a new friend from my house church at the end of tonight's service.  Was nice to say hi and give/get a quick hug
8. Thankful for chocolate tonight
9. I experienced a "fire tunnel" tonight at the church service - a fairly random experience that I've always deliberately avoided in the past.  So, it was a conquering fear thing, and I figured, hey, I respect these people who are doing the praying, and it's been a rough time lately and I could use some extra prayer, so why not?  Glad I did it - whatever anyone thinks of this kind of stuff, (and I have lots of skeptical opinions of my own) tonight I felt God's presence simply in the midst of walking through a line of people praying.
10. Did I mention that it was great to worship like that?  Seriously made me want to move to the church the Johnsons are from and just hang out there all the time :)

Because you are

I'm tired, slightly sunburnt, have a huge bruise and lump on my right leg from building a bookcase yesterday, and am feeling like I don't have very much to say at the moment.

There is still so much going on in my heart, but I'm having a bit of a hard time putting words to it these days.

I went to the zoo with a friend this morning. That was fun.

Then I mostly rested for the remainder of the day, and I'm headed to bed very shortly.

I'm thinking a lot about this song lately. "Is there something wrong with my heart that I can't see?... I'll praise you, if I never feel you, and I'll love you, cause I know you're there. And if you should choose I'm sure one day I'll feel it. But feeling good's never the reason I cared. Father I praise you because you are. Jesus I love you because you are. Spirit, I worship you because you are...."

The lyrics of the song are beautiful.

I'm particularly identifying with this line right now, "No lack of desire in this desert to worship. I keep singing skyward, it just never rains."

(Have I mentioned recently that I'm grateful for all of the rain we've been having in the last few weeks, even if I'm not feeling that same rain and refreshing within my soul? The tangible reminder of it in the physical realm is giving me hope.)

I worship you because you are.