I’m sitting at a coffee shop.  Sometimes coffee shops are the best place to think. I haven’t had time to think lately. It might sound strange, but I can only go so long without really thinking.  I don’t mean the level of thought required to navigate through a day, or the decision-making ability to order at a drive through.  I mean really deep thinking.  The kind of thinking that brings light and reflection to things that you can’t process or unpack otherwise.  When the run and shuffle of life starts to get too fast paced, the lack of quality time to sit and process things really starts to bother me.  I need it.

Too much has happened lately.  For one, my mother in law just passed away.  I still haven’t been able to personally grieve myself yet, as my energy and attention has been focused on helping my wife through it all. She had been living at our house with us and due to an unexpected fall had to be taken to a hospital, where she then died. We really missed having that smile around.  Our house had gone untouched since the day the ambulance had taken her.  One night I caught my wife looking through the things that mom had out on her dresser before the craziness of the ride that took her away.  It was one of the first moments that things were quiet enough that the reality of what happened was sinking in.  Yesterday my wife started the process of cleaning mom’s room and sorting through her stuff- another hard moment.  

I don’t want to get into particulars, but other things have been pulling at us and wearing us down.  We have been dealing with struggles on almost every angle, every direction that you look.  On top of it all, is the constant strain on us in the spiritual sense.  The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He has been working hard on us lately. In almost every sense of our lives, it seems that one or more of those efforts has tried to pull us apart and stop what God is doing.  Our personal walk with the Lord.  Our marriage. Our blended family.  Our relationships with those we love.  Our health.  Our finances.  Our purpose and ministry in life.  God has come to bring life, and life abundant, but we are still waiting on some of that.

This might be one of the shortest posts I’ve ever written, but it may have one of the simplest messages. 

I was listening to a song as I drove here. I couldn’t help but worship.  It’s not a worship song per se, but in the reality of my world, I saw it as a chance to verbalize what my heart needed to say. And I did it well.

Some people think that you need to speak audibly to worship.  I’m not sure where that idea came from.  If I lost the ability to speak, I could still worship.  If someone stole my voice, I could still speak to God, and he can speak to me without voice as well.  I raised my hand.  Nobody needed to know what I was doing.  The passing car beside me might have thought I was crazy, but who cares.  I listened to the words that expressed my heart perfectly. I sang them internally- louder than any voice could possibly sing.  I lifted my praise and worship to the King, the only one who is there for me.  And I realized something huge.

In the words of Nathaniel Rinehart/ William Rinehart from Need To Breathe:

“God of mercy sweet love of mine

I have surrendered to Your design

May this offering stretch across the skies

And these Halleluiahs be multiplied”

            You might be in a similar situation.  Maybe everything seems to be unraveling at the seams.  Maybe you are beat down and bruised.  I told my wife, Faerie, that I felt like a car with four flat tires while someone was whipping me from behind chasing me up a hill.  Maybe that describes you as well.  

If so, here is my challenge to you today:

            Get alone with God.  Turn on a worship song.  Lift up praise and worship to our King.  Yes, our situations might be bogged down and heavy.  Yes, our plight may be sore burdened that we can hardly go anymore.  Yes, life can get hard.  Will our situations all change just by worshipping the Lord?

            Maybe.

            Maybe not.

            The thing is, when we have surrendered to God’s design and have sacrificed ourselves to live and please him, how can we go wrong?

            When we take our eyes off the situation and put them on the Lord, nothing really can stand between perfect peace anyway.  We have a room to escape, a hideaway, a place of secret membership where only you and God are allowed to occupy.  That is where I challenge you to go today.  

            Nothing may change.

            But just knowing you have God, and God has you. . . 

            It changes everything.

By Chuck Carr