I can't believe it's been over 7 months since I've written here...so much has happened that I don't even know if I could put it all into words. Seven months ago we experienced what we would have considered one of the hardest trials that we have had to encounter and yet it has turned into one of the biggest blessings...
Over the past several months, God has slowly & patiently been transforming my thoughts of worship and teaching me about His sovereign grace - a big reason we respond to Him in worship. Through His patient prompts and pursuit, He is teaching me that these things we consider "trials" and "struggles" are truly just His incredibly gracious pursuit of us...trying to get us to a place that we will actually listen to Him and be ready to respond to Him. As humans, our pride tends to blind us when things are going smoothly and we tend to not be still and listen as much...it is when we are in a storm, that we feel so desperate to know Him and strive to listen for Him and to be aware of His presence".
There is also the process of pruning ("He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." John 15:2). As God grows us and we learn to turn to Him in everything, He will prune us more and more so that He seen as the strength in our weakness. This is a constant part of the sanctification process...if we exist for His glory alone, we understand and learn to cherish the time of pruning despite how hard it might be. This is when we understand James telling us to find joy in our trials...this is when we learn a life of worship.
We so often reference Romans 12:1-2 and recognize that we need to "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship." What I am learning is that this act of true and proper worship, the act of offering our bodies as a living sacrifice is when we recognize that when we are encountering the times when God is pursuing us to the extent that we are struggling and truly come to appreciate His pursuit instead of wishing to get out of that "struggle". It is welcoming His pursuit and looking for Him in it...those are the times that we worship at our best, because we are truly recognizing His sovereignty - that He is in everything and that nothing happens without Him knowing it.
This is the worship that becomes transformational in our lives... Maybe why James says to "count it all joy when we encounter trials of various kinds"; because when we are encountering these trials and struggles is when God is moving & working within our lives. This is why He's given us the Holy Spirit...to be able to navigate through the times and actually grow and worship Him by giving our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy & pleasing to God.
I am so grateful that God has chosen to work in our family; so grateful that despite how often I act in my humanity rather than acting in the Holy Spirit, that He does not give up on me, but continues to pursue me and put me in places where only He can get me through. These are truly becoming my greatest moments of worship...and many of them don't even have music! LOL
He has also been gracious enough to surround us with people who choose to walk through this life together...how gracious He is to understand how weak we are in our humanity and to surround us with others who will walk with us through all of the junk. What a blessing is the body of Christ! "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven." Col 1:3-5
