golden clay

The drums are deafening; I can feel them in my chest. I watch the worshipers in front of me sway, hands raised.

What’s the big deal about singing praise songs? I’m a skeptic in the crowd tonight, tracing the ugly pattern of the carpet in the church.

Because I forget how Corrie Ten Boom sang hymns smack-dab in the middle of Nazi brutality.

I forget how the martyr Jerome worshipped in song until the flames were too hot to continue.

I forget how Paul and Silas faced a night in prison with singing.

And how Jim Elliot and his friends entered their life-threatening gospel mission with song.

If worship is why we are here and song is its vocal expression, then the devil must shriek at the sound.

Our battle cry.

And while nation rises against nation and the world cries in despair…

the church sings.

the Devil runs.

and hope remains.

“After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.’ As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men…who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.” 2 Chronicles 20:21-22

A thin layer of dust begins to form on my running shoes as we weave through the crowd at the giant country fair. Dad and I furiously lick our melting ice cream cones and watch the passersby.

The little girl riding on her father’s shoulders, butterfly face paint. The teenage girls, giggling together and sneaking looks at the boy in the cowboy hat. The young couple holding hands.

I wish I was all of them. I waste two minutes of the day, imagining a different circumstance in which to enjoy it.

As I kick up Canadian dust four miles from my parent’s green-and-white farmhouse and two feet from a devoted father, discontentment quietly robs my opportunity for joy.

Until I wish to be right where I am with the ice cream dripping down my hand and Dad making a joke he’s made countless times before.

Because what if the secret to happiness is not being someone else somewhere else with somebody else? It’s just being glad. Being glad with the life you’ve got in the time it’s given with the people who share it. 

And what if gladness comes from knowing that God is the One who planned those three pieces and puts them together? 

I really don’t want this moment served with nostalgia ten years from now.

I want this moment while I’m in it.

“A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” Proverbs 14:30

I lie flat against the barn roof, trying to ignore the single screw digging into my shoulder blade. I count stars until I’m absorbed in the Milky Way.

On a Sunday, I close my eyes and sing, “God you are my God. You’re glorious.”

God. You’re my God.

A moment of contentment.

I lay on the barn roof, sifting through layers of stars. It’s an honour just to see His handiwork with my own eyes.

Just to whisper praise for His name.

God you are my God.

The privilege of worship.

“I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” Ps. 84:10

I roll down my window to open the gate into the parking lot underneath the high-rise where I work. My speakers blast country music. I don’t have time to adjust the sound before a stranger walks past my car. My neck feels warm with embarrassment. There goes my professional image.

Hi, my name is Kate, and I’m a people-pleaser.

On Sunday, I listen as he tells us how bitterness is not a weapon we wield, it’s a suicidal poison.

I have a similar strain of the virus. I am well-acquainted with the sin of people-pleasing. It’s an old companion of mine.

And it’s going to kill me.

Starting with that deadly misconstruction that I’m behind the wheel as long as people like me.

It’s black-ice thinking. The way my mind spins out of control as I analyze Their thoughts and make decisions based on Their philosophies. The way I try to position the camera, so They see me in the best light.

By trying to control my appearance, I have put the power in Their hands, signed over control to my thoughts, my words, my actions.

I’ve given Them my artillery, taken off my armour and raised my hands in air.

Strangers of my Soul own me.

I have it backwards like most things.

The Maker of my Soul provides an escape.

That blessed invitation to please a more forgiving Master. To stop living for other people.To wave my flag in surrender to Him. To sign over control to my thoughts, my words, my actions.

To embrace freedom.

“With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.” Romans 12:1-2

I listen to him as he speaks from the front of the church, his voice almost hoarse with passion. Pursue the Kingdom first, he says. Like those people receiving death threats for Christ-centered living.

I’m desperate to know my place in the world, for the Kingdom. A not-quite-quarter-life crisis. I’ll take the death threats, Lord. I’ll go anywhere. (Or so I think.)

The church clears and I walk slowly to the front and ask her to pray for me. The strength of her wrinkled hands surprises me as she folds them into mine and I wonder if the Holy Spirit is teleprompting her. “You want to be obedient, but you want to know exactly what that means for you,” she looks me in the eyes.

I nod, remembering a conversation I’d had weeks ago. “Everyone talks about their ambitions,” she had said to me as we watched the light bounce across the ripples on the lake. “All I want is a quiet life, to be involved in the church.”

The lady with the wrinkled hands prays for my zealous conviction to be transformed into clear direction.

And I’m remembering how the girl at the lake had said she wanted a quiet life. To be a member of the body. A low-profile servant. Now that’s ambitious.  

I’m foolish, zealous without discipline. I think I’m willing to be burned at the stake when I’m not willing to turn off the snooze button and meet the morning with prayer.  

The lady’s wrinkled hands squeeze mine before letting go. And I wonder how she became insightful, where she learned to pray.

There must have been many many mundane moments in many many ordinary days where she chose to take the offensive against laziness and storm the towers of selfishness.

She must have been ambitious. She must have been brave.

“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” 1 Thessalonians 4:12

She puts her hand on my arm and asks me how they can pray for me.

I’ve just met them. Just learned her and her daughter’s names right there on a Wednesday night a few rows from the front of the church.

She asks me for a prayer request.

I try to think fast. What is the greatest burden on my heart? It’s like a perfect winter blizzard–the way the summer memories spin. I sift through which phone call was the most painful, which conversation the most difficult, which word caused the most grief.

“I just feel lost,” I tell her. She has kind eyes.

It’s a perfect winter blizzard.

And she tells me later how she lost her husband ten years ago. It’s still hard.

It’s still hard.

“But,” she pauses, “I wonder. Could we could just thank God? He has given me a passion for His Word in my grief.”

She prays Scripture like it’s a rich dessert, savouring every word. She prays with conviction.

And I drive home on a Wednesday night, singing in the darkness of my car.

“For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.” Psalm 33:4

(Re-posting: Life has been hard lately, but this stays true. Looking to Christ is the answer.)

On Sunday morning, we stand in church.

Everyone sings:

Ruin my life

The plans that I’ve made…

Beside me, she joins them.

I don’t sing. I wring my hands. What if. What if. What if.

On Monday night, she gets the e-mail that just might ruin her life. Everything that she has woven together is pulled out loop by loop, strand by strand. We stand around her and pray for results, for miracles. But she prays for God’s glory.

Somehow, we end up with hands and faces on the hardwood floor of the kitchen. No words left. Just a posture of worship. I lift my palms in surrender. Because I trust Him. Like she trusts Him. Even now.

“Enoch walked faithfully with God” (Gen. 5:24).

But there are weeks when I feel like it would be easier to run ahead of God. To let go of His hand and to forge ahead on my own, to catch the view on the other side of the hill, to try to find clarity before the light fades.

Why Lord, why is it taking so long to get to the other side? Will we have to walk through the night?

There are weeks when walking with God seems like stepping into pain. It seems more like the tear-filled prayers in the middle of the night and the balled-up Kleenexes covering the living room floor.

It seems. It seems.

And then she writes the reference of Psalm 23 with a big black magic marker on piece of paper ripped out of a notebook. And I read it to her aloud as my heart aches. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

And we both start giggling because the reality of His promises puts our pain in perspective. We laugh and laugh because His promises are so big, it’s hilarious. And yet, they’re true.

I’d rather hold His hand in the darkness than live alone in the light. I’d rather know pain in His embrace than know every earthly pleasure apart from His love.

In the middle of the work day, I hold back the tears and ask for a moment of grace. Only a moment. And then I’ll ask for one more moment after that. And after that.

Step by step. As Joy and Pain go hand-in-hand, I can hardly tell the two apart.

“Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame” (Psalm 25:3).

He looks across the table at us, looks us right in the eyes and tells us how it’s changed his life.

Dedicating himself to the Spirit before the birds start singing, before the rest of the world is even awake. He takes the Word of God in hand and says something like this, “Lord, I believe this book. Every word. And I give myself to you to use.”

It’s scandalous. How he whispers this every morning in the middle of a world that says the Words of the Book are antiquated and outdated. He dares to do this in a world where even us Christians have difficulty accepting the Words if they go against our sensitive ears.

Even as he’s telling us, I’m wondering if I have the courage to make such a declaration in the quiet of my bedroom, in the wee hours of the morning. “I believe the Book.”

And I’d go to work and work like I believe the Book. And I’d have lunch with my friends and talk like I believe the Book. I’d go to parties and socialize like I believe the Book.

It’s terrifying because sometimes I act like I know better than the Scripture. I downplay the Words that are difficult. The issues of obedience, sacrifice, servant-hood. None of those make sense in a world of self-glorification. I find myself getting far too close to the words the Serpent said in the Garden. Did God really mean that?

Yes, yes He did mean it. He still means it today.

So, why does the man look at us across the table and look us right in the eyes to tell us all this? Because it’s changed his life.

“Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” Jeremiah 23:29

The words about Sin are accompanied by the words about Redemption. And the words about Obedience are accompanied by the words about Great Reward. And Death is replaced with Resurrection.

Because the Book does not provide the option for a bits ‘n pieces approach. It’s all or nothing.

And that’s what he’s telling us across the table, eyes sparkling. The Spirit takes his whole life, just takes over.

And that’s when life starts to get really good.

I slip into a back row of chairs. Late to church again.

The old familiar words from Spafford grip my heart immediately. When peace like a river attendeth my way.

I look around the room. The hundreds of hands lifted, voices raised, heads bent, hearts softened. And I think of the way he talks about church, the value he gives to it. This meeting together–how it’s worth pursuing.

But sometimes, for me, church is just an option. An option I hurriedly choose after waking up late.

An option inspired by Sunday morning tradition.

I’m too good for church, I think. I can serve God without attending it.

I talk about church like it’s an event.

Like it’s a checklist duty.

But standing in a back row on a Sunday morning, I realize there is something greater at work.

The whole energetic host of people swaying together to a century-old hymn. The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend.

And it’s not just five-hundred people in a room. It’s the echo of thousands of saints from ages past. It’s the anthem for thousands of future followers.  It’s the voice of the Church being heard in the middle of Oakville, in Canada, the world, universe. Across the heavens.

It’s a declaration to the spiritual forces of darkness that our voice cannot be drowned out. After a devastating, grief-filled week. After a heart-breaking political decision. After a month of neglecting the Word. We’re back. And we’re stronger than ever.

And I’m not just attending church.

I’m joining the song. I’m joining in surrender. I’m putting my voice in with the rest of the saints.

Because…

It is well with our souls.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.” Acts 2:42-44