Remedy

I’m sitting here at my desk trying to hold back tears right now.  Do you know the reason?  I am listening to the new David Crowder*Band cd and my heart is so full of admiration and adoration of the great Lord and Savior we serve, of His incredible beauty, grace and the privilege it is to serve Him and be used by Him to help our world out of the sickness of sin even while we still struggle against it ourselves.  What amazing grace.  God is good and I am so pleased that He has blessed individuals with the ability to take the most profound truth and knowledge and experiences and put them into art in novels like Ted Dekker’s The Circle Trilogy or into music like David Crowder*Band with Remedy.  Wow, this is beautiful.  I love you Jesus!

Teamwork

What an awesome experience to be part of a team. I’m so happy we’re about team ministry at Highland! I’m a part of some incredible teams here. Our pastoral team, the worship planning team, the children’s leadership team. I have skills and knowledge to offer to each group, but I certainly do not know how to do it on my own. But I’m not supposed to. That’s part of the beauty of the way God’s created us! We’re not supposed to be able to do it on our own. We can’t do it without God and He’s made it so that we can’t do it without one another either.

God’s placed you on different teams so that you don’t have to do it alone. The team of your marriage, your family, your ministry, Highland Church, the Kingdom of God! All of these are great opportunities for you to experience the great joy of being part of a team. Being part of something that is greater than yourself. Being part of accomplishing something far greater, above and beyond what you could possibly do on your own. What an astounding God we serve that He would create us each with gifts to be used in tandem with the gifts of teammates! Synergy is a beautiful truth. The results of our efforts are multiplied when we work together as God has intended. So see your abilities, what you can offer to the team, but don’t let your vision stop there! See what your team can accomplish as you place your efforts, skills and knowledge together!

God, help us all to recognize our significance in our teams and to recognize the beauty of teamwork and synergy! Thank you Jesus!

You don’t have to do it on your own. You aren’t supposed to. You're not expected to. Enjoy the beauty and amazing experience of teamwork.

The Melancholic Piano

At my parents’ home there is a terribly out of tune piano. It used to belong to my grandmother and she gave it to my family sometime around my eighth birthday… within my existing memory it’s only been tuned or looked at once since. I’m visiting my parents’ right now and when I sat down at it this morning with some worship music I struck the first chord and a small shudder went through me. Not like our grand at Highland with it’s rich, full, in tune… most of the time in tune, sound that I’ve grown accustomed to playing. The notes were sorely flat and a slightly melancholy, but I kept playing and by the time I reached the third song God’s love swept through me, not in spite of the dissonant chords, but because of them. Somehow they had turned to something beautiful in my ears and the melody I was playing reached into my soul and touched a deep joy. With tears in my eyes I continued to play, letting the slightly melancholy but incredibly joyful music fill my heart and I realized this might very well be the way we sound to God.

Our lives are most of the time not perfectly tuned to His will, but we worship Him anyways. We allow Him to play His perfect and beautiful song through our lives and that to Him is the most beautiful sound there could ever be. I think it’s when we are struggling to do our best to hit those notes that He is filled with the most joy because He knows we are loving Him. He sees that we want to sing His song, to be His instrument. Just like the melancholic piano at my parents’ house filled my heart with incredible joy and was beautiful to me, our song, even in the midst of trial and struggle and the feeling of failure, is a sweet, sweet sound in God’s ear that resonates in His heart through His love for us.

Today, sing to the King. Even if your life is madly out of tune. Fill His heart today with joy because you choose to sing His song to Him and let Him sing His song through you. You will be blessed by it too.