Skip to main content

Best time of worship

I love unexpected blessings that result from a detour.

The original plan: To dine at Zingerman's Roadhouse for the first time, with a dear friend whose days in town are counting down (going to the Roadhouse was one of the things on her bucket list).

What actually ended up happening: Catching-up, worshiping, and praying OUTSIDE while enjoying God's gifts!


Lisa and I had been planning this for a while now and I was super stoked about having this one-on-one time with her. The detour came when she began telling this long story about how the HS challenged her to fast for pre-christians in her life. I've never understood the hype about Zingerman's (gah whoever's reading this, please don't kill me) and frankly never thought it was worth the price tag or wait time. Despite me having communicated this, Lisa was SUPER apologetic about not being able to follow through on our original plan.

We ended up picking up some drinks from Panera and heading over to the Diag to catch-up while enjoying the completely out-of-the-blue gift of beautiful weather. The time catching-up and testifying to God's work in our lives was awesome as usual, but the clincher was really what followed. We moved to a lesser congested part of the Diag (to respect those around us who were studying), whipped out a guitar, and started publicly (!) praising our Lord JC for all the great work He had done, free-worship style, just like the summer when we led together. A handful of people walked by, some with confused looks, others intentionally looking away, or a few even commenting on what we were doing. I've always been cautious about publicly singing songs of praise, wondering its effectiveness in reaching the audience of people walking by--but this time of worship was for us, not for them. We brought the guitar so we could just.. personally worship (for our own sake) while enjoying the weather (enjoying the weather = another form of worship), not so we could grab people's attention or leave an impression. But what better way to pray for the lost in this city than to actually BE immersed in the midst of the HUNDREDS that had flocked out to enjoy the weather too, right?

Sure we could have worshiped and praised God in the midst of our private conversation at a restaurant, but what made this time today so powerful was that we did the same thing, just in a public setting. Who knows what impression our verbal conversations, audible lyrics, or act of praying left on the tens of people that walked/sat/tanned near us, but I'm so thankful for the detour that allowed us to worship Jesus personally aND publicly.


I left our time together wanting to reschedule all my meet-ups this week to involve sitting outside with a guitar. Not sure if the weather will permit that, but definitely a mental note for spring term :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Delirious

delirious (adj): marked by uncontrollable excitement or emotion; ecstatic; filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy (1 peter 1:8); me I don't think I had a personal relationship with God until 2 weeks ago. There have been a lot of formative moments and experiences in the past 6 years of me considering the existence of a higher-being, 3 yrs of being a Christian, 1 year of living by faith, 6 months of serving on church leadership, 1 month of dire circumstances, each of which have been challenged and supported by specific instances in my life.* But it's only been 2 weeks of finding pure joy, satisfaction, and freedom in Christ (alone). Though it's been 6 years since I first stepped into a church building and 3 years since I accepted Christ, I was always afraid to admit that I didn't know what grace, freedom, repentance, or Jesus meant--in terms other than the ones I had heard or read--it was always a theory and never a reality in my own life. After years of doing chur
5 comments
Read more

And just when you least expect it..

Today I went down to the food court with another intern and as I opened my box of sushi, I hesitated. Feeling as if there were too many eyes on me (I only ate with one other person -_-), I questioned whether I should pray before my meal, in fear of social rejection. After I prayed, she asked me if I was a Christian, and I awkwardly responded that I was. Then she said, "Finally! What a relief to know that there are other Christians!" WHAT THE.. I couldn't believe it. Here I was, sitting with a co-worker that I had simply exchanged cordial greetings with, now talking about God haha. Even though I was scared and honestly did NOT want to pray, God used a habitual thing like that to open up opportunities for me to invite her to small group and share my faith. Crazy how He works when you least expect it.
5 comments
Read more

Honesty

If you're my friend, teammate, lifegroup member (or you have any context with me at all), I've probably hurt you. I've probably hurt you in the way I approached you, made you into an agenda, or seemed disinterested in our friendship at times when we weren't being "purposeful". I probably gave you the idea that I didn't value our time together unless we were doing something "productive"--and in all honesty, you were right--you read right through me, and knew exactly what I was thinking. Ever since experiencing God (personally) for the first time three weeks ago, I've seen how my skewed relationship with God has affected so many other parts of my life. Before, I saw having a relationship with God as a list of tasks--in my warped point of view and biases of being an already-too-task-minded person, if I wanted to know God, I needed to read the Bible, persevere in prayer, get involved in biblical community, and serve the church. If I did all these
2 comments
Read more