I got the privilege of being a part of a worship night for the second time the other night. We were supposed to practice on Monday, but then Granger decided it needed a blanket, so it put on a foot of snow. So our practice was pushed back to Wednesday, which was also the night of the actual worship night. People were late to rehearsal, (including myself), and we had some technical difficulties, so we didn't start for probably another hour. Off to a great start, huh? Referring to all of the snow and problems that night I remarked, "You know, it's almost like someone out there doesn't want this thing to happen..." (That's right satan, I called you on it.) What I didn't know yet was why he wanted that.
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| A shot of the mood, pre-students. Credit goes to @tsutch on Instagram. |
Then we started singing. Practice went pretty good. I love playing with those artists, the songs were terrific, and I generally knew what was going on, which is helpful. After breaking for dinner, Tyler took some time to talk to us and read some verses, to get us centered on why we were there: to praise God. After that, practice was just better somehow. When we finished, and people came in, the crowd was a bit smaller than I had hoped, so I was just praying that God knew what He was doing.
The music started with a relatively upbeat song, then slowly descended into the songs that people tend to really respond to. After a couple of songs the band got to take a seat to watch a video with the rest of the crowd, an acoustic rendition of the song Oceans, which is one of my favorite worship songs out there. That's when it got real for me. I really met with God in that song, and He held me for the rest of the night. The climax of the night was the song Set a Fire. The lyrics are very simple and repetitive, and we in the middle we just hung out on the chords while clips of one of Mark Beeson's sermons played. but in the down time, when nothing was happening, us in the band just kept playing those four chords, B...E...G#...E...B...E...G#...E... I couldn't tell you what happened in the crowd then. They all just faded into the background. All I know is that the musicians had our moment. Tyler wasn't singing into the microphone, but we were on stage living in those lyrics.
There's no place I'd rather be...
There's no place I'd rather be...
There's no place I'd rather be...
Then here in Your love, here in Your love LORD...
And I don't know when, but at some point I looked out into the room, and saw two lights on the ceiling. To me, almost anything can make a face. Cars have faces on the front and back, the two headlights and the bumper, that's all I need. I'll often draw a curved line beneath double O's, and make that into a face. But I saw those two lights, and there was no mouth to that face. No lines, no frown, no smile. A few choruses later, I looked back out, and that's when it hit me. The two lights were the eyes. They were God's eyes. And beneath them, were all of those bright faces, reflecting His glory. Because God wasn't smiling.
He was grinning.
What's in the grin of God? You are. I am. Anytime we praise Him, serve Him, love Him, we are the embodiment of the Joy of our Father.
