And I wish you could have been there, I wish you could understand what happened last night. How the wonder and the glory were on fire, brought me literally to my knees, my Father, my Lord, how he loves me. And how He beckoned to me, made me realize how sweetly broken I am.
This is literally how it went: I have had some of the most wearing times lately. Not enough sleep, constant work, constant deadlines. But yesterday was Ash Wednesday. The first day that Jesus spent in prayer, in fasting, in resistance of temptation because of His undying love for us, for our Father.
And I was going to go to an Ash Wednesday service, to show my thankfulness, to show my gratitude. But I got off work late and I had overslept and looked rough. So instead I went to my room and napped. And I went to a worship service called the Gathering at nine last night. And the message was Powerful, Convicting, Convincing, Truth. And that alone was enough for me to realize the GRACE of God. We looked at Galatians chapters 1-3. How Paul was reprimanding first Peter, then the Galatians. And then the speaker told us that this is a letter to us. To us. To us. To me. To me.
The speaker had asked us to write down what we thought the perfect Christian looked like. He read them to us. Someone who is in the word daily, someone who lives like Christ, does not judge, proclaims the love of Christ, meditates on the word day and night, loves his neighbor.
This, the speaker said, is exactly what the Galatians were doing. This is what we are doing. This is what our great mistake is. We think that we have to fulfill certain criteria in order to be in God's favor. We set rules for ourselves. Have daily quiet time, to participate in service. We get caught up in the significance of these things. I have. I've been tired lately. I would wake up early to try to have quiet time, and end up falling asleep in the middle of it. Then it got to the point where I couldn't even wake up early anymore.
I felt like I was failing, flailing. But I am not guaranteed a spot in heaven because I do or do not have quiet time, it is solely because of God's Grace. Last night I was reminded to constantly be in awe of in the thing that saved my life.
That in itself is powerful enough. But God was so bountiful last night. He taught me so much. We wrapped up with this song,
The lyrics are so powerful. "Oh I am running to your arms, I'm running to your arms. The riches of your life will always be enough. Nothing compares to your embrace. Light of the world forever reign."
And I was brought to tears. And I was sweetly broken, wholly surrendered. And the Holy Spirit was alive and the passion was there. Perfection.
And if the night would have ended there I would have been filled. But after a few Younglife people said, let's continue worship. So we went. Into a building, Into a lounge. Two guitars. Fifteen people. From different avenues, from different ministries and three Fathers, three men studying for the priesthood showed up on their last night.
And we sang.
And we prayed.
And we praised.
And we spilled out our hearts,
Held our arms open wide for our Lord.
We were overwhelmed.
We fell in love with Christ all over again.
It was the most emotional, most faith reassuring experience. It was so right, so spontaneous, so real, so in love. So in love. With God. With Christ. With Grace. For two straight hours we worshiped, we were in continuous prayer and our praise was said out loud, said within fellowship. We, some strangers, were brought together for our ardent, burning, consuming love of our Savior. And today all I can think about is the one who paid my debt. The one who has given it all, given His life, and loves me. These are a few of the songs we sang, I can't remember most of them:
How he loves us
Mighty to save
Sweetly broken
Mighty to save
You’re Beautiful
From the inside out
And this is literally what it was like to be in that room with brothers and sisters in Christ,
