The Day God Stopped Worship
The pastors prayer trailed off and the wordless music of the worship team rose into its place, stirring the room of congregants into a simmer of whispered praise. As the music swelled it changed the atmosphere in the room just slightly from busy distraction to focused reverence. Soon the leader of the worship band began to sing, bringing a lyrical layer to a song that had already baptised the room with spiritual meaning.
Within this crowd was me, standing alongside friends and strangers alike as I often did Sunday mornings. Metaphorically I was knee-deep in the waters of worship. I liked this song, it was fairly easy to sing except the chorus when some notes were too high for me to hit clearly. The words were fairly general but not campy. The melody was nice. The only issue was the person a couple rows up and a little to the left. They were a little too into the song. In fact they were regularly a little too into worship, right from the beginning. Who were they kidding.. For someone to already be outwardly flagrant at the beginning of worship is just showing off. Thats a third or fourth song thing, when you've had a chance to steep in Gods presence. Clearly.
Then there was my friend next to me. They were at the opposite end of the spectrum dinking on their phone. I was a little embarrassed but not surprised. My friend wasn't the deepest spiritually. More than likely some Pinterest recipe had arrested their attention.
I turned My eyes back to the screen as the second song slid in like a wave, knocking some in the front of the sanctuary to their knees. That seemed a little premature.. And a little premeditated. Observing the two church-goers and the timing of their display I surmised the first one a went down to impress the girl on his right and the girl went down just a half beat after to copy him. I furrowed my brow at this show. I had seen this behavior before from this couple and many like them. One always echoed the movements of the other. To many it might look like a move of the Spirit but a careful observer notices things like this.
The second song came and went. My friend finally let her eyes drift from her phone screen up to the words on the worship screen and paused there. Not just paused, but froze. I turned my head to see what she was staring at and didn't see anything unusual at first. Then I realized the screen wasn't changing. Either the computer projector had frozen or the person in charge of changing the slides had fallen asleep, neither of these were unusual. What was unusual was the music had also seemed to stop.. Not like in a way that left us in silence but more had the effect of an idling engine at a traffic light. There was still noise but it was subtly repetitive. It hadn't immediately gotten my attention because it still sounded like music but less passionate and directed.. More like white noise. As my ears struggled to make sense of what I was hearing I turned to comment to my friend and found her still frozen in place. My heart fluttered with sudden panic at what could be wrong with her but as I began to look around for someone to help us I realized my friend wasn't the only one not moving I. In fact, I was the only one that was still in motion. To confirm this I brought my hand before my eyes and saw I could flex my fingers. The hair rose on the back of my neck as my eyes drifted over the crowd of stock-still church members. It was like looking at a three-dimensional photograph. Some had their hands raised, some had their heads down, fresh tears only a moment ago running freely down their faces were like glass, immobilized. My eyes caught a glimpse of a tear caught in mid-air and as my eyes focused in horror and wonder at this anomaly I was startled out of concentration by a noise. Not just a noise but a voice. A voice saying my name. All this flew through my head in the second it took to turn my head and lay my eyes on the source of the voice.
It was God. I needed no explanation or introduction, the knowledge wedged it's way deep into my soul and perched there with an air of finality, not giving any time to question.
Part of me felt the weight of the encounter and began to experience a myriad of silent emotions just as another thought took wing and sat beside the first epiphany on the perch of my soul. The thought was this: "I am always here with you. This is no different simply because you see me this way." I had the distinct feeling the Lord had something to accomplish and wanted to get strait to the point. Before I could ask I felt the hand on my shoulder and could see nothing but the probing eyes of the Creator studying me as if my very thoughts were as visible as my face. And perhaps to an omnicient Being they were.
"Tell me. About the other worshippers. What troubles you?"
I was initially taken aback by the question. God is asking my opinion? To what end? Was I going to appointed as some sort of prophet? Was I about to impart a message to the church about the failed heart condition of the corporate worship setting? It must be important to be brought about in such a singular fashion. Imagine God freezing a whole room of people to get my attention! I mulled over the possibilities as I felt myself being guided out of my row by the hand and brought to the opposite side of the aisle to a man and his son seated on the end. The mans hands were clasped in front of him, almost clenched. His expression was of one unaffected by his surroundings, his gaze directed at the corner of the room, seemingly at nothing.
"Do you suppose he's bored?" the voice of the Lord inquired. I nodded thoughtfully, thinking exactly this. I was a little grieved that this man would be attending church and making appearances but remain so unaffected by the Spirit. He didn't seem to be setting a great example for his son who also appeared detached from what was going on in the room. As I turned to walk away in disappointment a light buzzing began to grow in volume over the hum of the idled music. A scattered rhythm developed amongst the buzzing, then I began to discern the individual beats to be words. A voice was speaking. As I turned back to the man it became clearer and louder. These were his inner thoughts. They were prayers.. Desperate intercession for his son. He was so tenderly but vehemently pouring out deep cries for the well-being and salvation of the young man next to him and it so caught me off guard that my breath caught in my throat. Then the thoughts of the younger man began to fade in. By the sound of it he was much closer to salvation than his father could fathom. Hearing them both simultaneously became so overwhelming I stumbled back and fell. It was if some sort of signal was broken and abruptly I lost the ability to tune in to their conjoined inner monologue. Almost as soon as they were silenced another voice rose behind me. Another persons thoughts, this time a bitter battle was being waged. I turned and got back onto my feet to find myself before an older woman, frozen in a display of worship. Arms raised strait up, eyes closed, she was probably the loud voice I had heard singing and enunciating each word in the middle of the first worship song earlier. I didn't think she had much going on in her mind then other than being loud and expressive to seem spiritual to those around her but now hearing her inner thoughts I found her to be very conflicted and deeply burdened. It was as if her outward participation in the song was to stubbornly refuse give in to the doubts that plagued her. I could imagine her swinging each word of the song like a sword of truth to slay the nagging thoughts that swooped upon her subconscious. I turned away from her in guilt at missing what was really happening in her heart and vowed to not be so quick to assess a person by their body language.
My eye then landed behind her on a young man. I had seen him very often during worship. He was always turned up to 11, always high energy and had a very high level of expression. Usually I would have thought he had something to prove or impure noticed but fresh from my shame misjudgment of others I mused he must be very sincere and very sure of his relationship with the Almighty. I soon found my thoughts interrupted by Gods gentle voice.
"Actually your initial instincts were correct about this one. His thoughts would be disturbing to you if I were to let you hear them. But that aside, rest assured I am working with him. He is not out of my sight nor my hand."
I was becoming disoriented and overwhelmed by this whole experience. Not only were my judgements far off but my attempts at recalibrating my attitude weren't beneficial either. What was I to conclude? What was I to say on behalf of the Lord if I was getting everything wrong?
I made my way back to my seat, deflated and disillusioned but my experience was not yet concluded. As I squeezed around the prone body of my friend to return to my seat my eyes landed on her phone screen still frozen in place. For a moment I felt wrong in looking but when my eyes shifted sideways to the Lord I felt encouragement to read what my friend had been so fixated before she looked up. By the looks of it she had been looking something up on a search engine. Scanning the search results that came up I concluded it was lyric from the first song we had sung in worship. She was merely trying to understand what we were singing.
I threw my hands in amazement at my own blindness. One last time God interrupted my thought process.
"I brought you through this not to make a messenger out of you but to make the others messengers to you - Guard your heart from the distraction of judging others and find yourself consumed by me during this set aside time... And not just then but always. Allow me to work in your heart as I work in theirs. Give me your undivided attention."
As I thought on this I was aware the progression of the music in the background had returned to normal. I looked around to see if the people around me were animated again, thus ending my strange experience. For a split second before I observed them beginning to move I caught the gaze of someone staring me down, their eyes focused on me intently. As they and the rest of the people instantaneously regained motion though, the individual saw I was looking and averted their gaze.
For a moment I speculated on what they were judging me for, what they thought about my outward demeanor.. but then I was brought back Gods' admonishment to focus on Him and nothing else.
And that is what I did.
