Something unusual happened last night at our weekly Intercession service. We pride ourselves much of the time on being open to a "move of the Spirit." So it's not uncommon for worship to last an hour and then to have a time of praying for healing or deliverance for people and then to have a message or some combination of the above. We often find ourselves still praying for folks at 10pm. We begin at 7pm. I love it!
Last night, John Ryan McNaughton was "scheduled" to bring our message. But as he led worship, he felt a "halt" being placed on him by God. He described it to me like this - "it felt like moving foward in any way would be contrived. I was confused about how to proceed." Now, this isn't a reflection on John Ryan's competence as a worship leader. He's a very gifted worship leader. It's more of a reflection on how we listen for the prompting of God and respond to it in worship, in work, in relationships, in life.
You see, in North American culture we are convinced that we are wasting time unless we are occupied with work. We derive much of our value from this. Unless I'm doing, unless I'm accomplishing, then I'm not being valuable to someone, and hence I'm being irresponsible with my time. It's a pretty big value for us. And so we at times will do just about anything to keep from doing nothing and feeling "value-less."
Last night, God interrupted our "doing" with "non-doing." It was as if God was challenging us to be in His Presence without doing another single thing. John Ryan played a single sustained note while we sat and struggled with "what next?" What's supposed to happen? What are we supposed to DO now?
And we discovered the answer together which was... not a thing.
One of my roles as a pastor is to interpret a move of God when I perceive it. What I perceived last night was God issuing a radical challenge to our socially inherited sense of what makes me valuable. At any given time, what constitutes the value of the child of God is quite simply their sonship and daughter-ship. God delights in us AS WE ARE.
There are times when I love to go into my children's room at night before I go to bed and just watch them sleeping. I pray over them but I also just stand and just simply wonder. They are beautiful. They are innocent (at least while they're asleep!). They are so wonderfully made by God. There's nothing they're required to do for me to love them. Sometimes, I just get to enjoy them while they're doing absolutely nothing except being asleep.
Our time with God doesn't always have to follow a programme. Sometimes, we are allowed - perhaps released - to just be with God in the manner that God chooses to be with us. God may desire to interrupt our words, our schedule, our highly structured expectation of our time with Him and do something new. He has that permission. After all, He's God. And that's okay. It's more than okay. Against the stream of a culture that so highly values doing over being - it's a very GOOD thing.
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