Starting this Sunday Westwind is teaching through eleven psalms throughout the Book of Psalms. The series is entitled Soul Dance: The Rhythm of Worship. Taking various psalms, the teaching team will look at how we as God’s children are to approach him in worship. It seems like something we would all benefit from, right?

I thought that most people would answer “yes” to this question, however, I was involved in a conversation recently in which two Jesus followers were sharing their lack of interest in Psalms to the point that they even questioned why someone would read them. Their view of this book in the Bible was almost as if it had slipped in somehow when no one was looking. I was disheartened, but I began to wonder if others felt the same way.

The central theme to the entire Book of Psalms is worship. God is to be worshipped in happy times, sad times, scared times, majestic times…you get the picture.

There are three benefits this series brings to our worshipping community as I see it. First, worship is more than singing. How many times have we heard the words, “and now let’s stand and worship the Lord”? We equate worshipping God with harmonies, words that rhyme and cool guys with tattoos leading congregations in song. But worship is so much more than that. At the heart of worship is giving God his due. When we are told that we are “awesome” it makes us feel good because it is a compliment. But, in all actuality we aren’t really awesome. At least not in the most literal form of the word. When we tell God he is awesome, it is true! He really deserves any and all praise that we give him. This series will help us worship God beyond the boundaries of verses and choruses.

Secondly, worshipping God means transparency. You don’t have to read too far into the Book of Psalms to see that the writers lay their feelings out to God. As you read each psalm you see the emotional breadth and width of the writers. This should open in our hearts a sense of transparency to God. God knows when we are angry, scared, lonely, afflicted, so why not admit these things to him and in turn let him connect with us at that level? My hope is that as a worshipping community, Westwind will raise its transparency level.

Lastly, this Soul Dance series will benefit the people of Westwind because it should inspire in us a new way of expressing ourselves to God. The Book of Psalms is poetry. It is heartfelt expressions by men who desperately wanted to know God at the deepest level. Too often we can get stuck in “instructional obedience” to God. By this I mean that we see the Bible more as an instruction manual and less as an expression of who God is. God created song, melody, harmony, color, passion, cadence, rhythm, so why not honor him with his creation? When we express ourselves to God in a poetic fashion we are just as worshipful as a flower opening its bloom, a bird singing its song, or a waterfall displaying its power. Our expression to God should be from the heart, which is where creativity and passion come from. This series should compel us toward poetic expression to God.

You may not be a psalms person now, but after experiencing this series, we hope you will be.

I enjoy gardening. This year I have attempted the biggest vegetable garden in my life. Lettuce, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, even watermelons have all been planted in my back yard with the expectation of a bountiful harvest. I envision a huge cornucopia basket overflowing with the fruits and vegetables that I have planted. But we all know that this can’t happen without work. Lots of work. Gardening involves weeding, watering, and waiting. It reminds me of our Christian relationships.

Almost every Jesus follower I know would love to have a fulfilling Christian relationship with someone who is just as passionate, if not more, about Christ than they are. They, like me in the garden, envision an overflowing of friendships that will fulfill them in times of spiritual hunger. But this, too, takes work. Our Christian relationships need to be watered, weeded, and waited upon.

The Friendship Drip Irrigation System
Your garden won’t make it too long without water. And, in the heat of the summer, you can’t just wait for the rain to nourish the gardens, you need a watering plan. Our Christian relationships are exactly the same way. Too many people are waiting for their relationship garden to be watered, when they need a plan to help nurture those Christian relationships. When we wait for the water to come to us, it could be too late. We could be too dried up. We need to have a means to nurture our spiritual relationships that can meet even our daily needs. This can be difficult for some because it means stepping out and initiating. So, why not start slow; invite someone out for coffee, or have a family over for dinner? For those who have Christian relationships already, why not bring them to the next level by asking that person to be an accountability partner? The key is to create relationships that can help you get you through the “dry times” in your life.

You Have to Pull From The Root
Weeds are no one’s friend when it comes to gardening. They steal nutrients from the soil, and soak up water that is intended for the plants your are trying to grow. There are weeds in our relationships that hurt our relationship fruit. One type is busyness. We fill our lives with so much that we actually don’t have time to develop deep spiritual relationships. This is a tough weed to pull, but if we don’t pull it, we will not reap the harvest of strong spiritual relationships. Another tough weed to pull is bitterness. When we have a grudge in our hearts we cannot connect with others. This weed has deep roots and it takes prayer, forgiveness, and patience to pull. Ridding our lives of weeds like these gives plenty of room to the good fruit we want to grow.

Patience is a Virtue
As much as I want to eat the harvest of my garden, I know that it will be months before I enjoy some of my effort. The same principle applies with spiritual relationships. You have to nurture them through time. I know there is a great debate over “Quality versus Quantity” time when it comes to relationship building. However, to me, there is no debate; quantity time wins every time. Sure, it is fun to do something special to build a relationship, but it is the quantity of time together that really grows a healthy spiritual relationship. More time equals more opportunities to deepen the relationship. You don’t have to be at Disneyland to do that.

How is your spiritual relationship garden? Dry? Weedy? Don’t let this summer pass by without being prepared to nurture your relationship garden. You will reap a cornucopia of spiritual fruit if you do.

I am amazed at how often I think the world revolves around me and my life. I find myself in the mindset that everyone knows what I need and what would be good for me. This is why traffic lights should change in my favor. It is why road rage is wrong for everyone, except for me. How can a cashier at Wal Mart overcharge me for something? Why did that person get in front of me in line? What are they thinking? How dare someone make me wait, for anything! I do not deserve to be inconvenienced. This is my story and my life.

Wrong! As I get a chance to see the world through the eyes of God, I see something very different. I become acutely aware that this is His Story, and it is all about Him and His glory. The story of the incarnation, substitution, redemption, and restoration of humanity is all about the Godhead. The roles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in their glory should be overwhelming. The Father’s love for us is unbelievable. The Son’s commitment to redeem us is outlandish. The Spirit’s passion to seal and guide us in spite of our pride is incredible. How can we forget this, and love our own selfishness?

Even those of us who do remember the story and yield to living for God and His glory often forget that there is a world that is dying and still does not know the real story. The evil one is intent on making sure that there are as few worshippers in eternity as possible. He will do whatever he can to steal, kill, and destroy the worship of God. He never quits, and never gets tired, or retires. The reality is that we live in a lost and dying world. Sadly, it seems that most of us don’t care. We live our lives as if we have no responsibility to let the world know of the love of God. We live in fear that to share the story might in some way make us undesirable to those closest to us. We say that we don’t talk about our faith for fear it might offend someone. So, we live good lives, and try to maybe make a difference every now and then. Meanwhile, another soul slips into a Christless eternity with no hope of peace or joy.

My friends, we must not be silent any longer. We cannot afford to live lives that are without voices and actions that back up our words. We must live transformed lives that resound with the love of God, the actions of the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Our day to day relationships must be graced with the actions and words of God. We must love unconditionally, and always be ready to give an answer of the hope and peace that lives in us. Our lives should be the greatest apologetic of God’s story of love and redemption. So the world may know!

“We loved you so much that we gave you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, as well.” 1 Thessalonians 2:8 NLT

Rome wasn’t built in a day and my testimony hasn’t been either.  My journey has felt more like God slowly coaxing me along His path than a lightning bolt of revelation.  I look back to the time before I walked with Him and He was always there.  Waiting for me to notice Him.

At the age of 27 I thought I had it all.  A new baby and a loving husband.  A comfortable home with friends and family nearby.  Yet I was angry.  Unreasonably angry.    I was continually annoyed at my husband.   I had a massive case of road rage.  I hated my mom.  My heart was wounded and a number of counselors were unable to tell me why.   God decided it was time to go to work.  Yet He made me think it was my idea.   He knew I wouldn’t have let anyone tell me what to do.  God, and my relationship with Him, was on my heart more and more.  I started going to church after several years of my husband going without me.  I had avoided it because the pastor who did our premarital counseling had offended me. (Surprise!)  When I went that day I was full of apprehension about seeing him.  I made it to my seat without running into him only to hear during the announcements that he was in Romania!  One side of my brain knew I was being irrational.  But the side that couldn’t help the way I felt was so grateful that God cared enough to meet me halfway.  A little ray of light seemed to reach my heart.  How can you not love someone who is so thoughtful?  Especially when you don’t deserve it.

God worked slowly.  Have you heard how to eat an elephant?  ONE BITE AT A TIME.  God started giving me a hunger for Him and His Word.  He showed me who He was and that I could trust Him.  Then He allowed me to be tested.  I went through a terrible depression that lasted two and a half years.  I felt so far away from Him during that time but He was always there.  He used this time to show me how He works through His people.  He surrounded me with friends and family who lifted me up and sometimes just listened and talked to me.    And I made it through.  I began to understand that He was my Father.  My Abba Father.  He would always be there, even through the hard times. Even if I couldn’t feel Him, I could know He was present.   I was so relieved and thankful.  I wanted everyone to know how much I loved Him.  I was baptized on Easter Sunday at the same age Jesus was when He was baptized.  That will always be special to me.  I feel like that was when my heart really started to change.

God continued to show me more and more of Himself through Bible studies.  After a few years my anger just seemed to have drained away.  I think the key to that was learning to turn my focus from the inside out.  I loved Jesus so much and was so thankful for who He was and not just what He did for me. He was healing my heart.  I started praying that there would be less of me and more of Jesus in my life.  He answered that prayer in big and small ways.   I loved helping people and was learning how to love them better.  The whole time Jesus was equipping me for a huge battle.  The end of my marriage.

I’ve been divorced since July and am now a single mom of three kids.  I went back to work after almost ten years of being a stay at home mom.  I’m living alone and paying the bills for the first time ever.    I’m going through the hardest time I’ve ever encountered in my life.  And I’m at peace.  I experience joy more than sadness.  I have bad days but the good days far outweigh them.  Jesus does this.  If I hadn’t had the relationship I had with Him before this turmoil I hate to think of what my life would look like and how sick my heart would be.  Being at peace isn’t enough though.  I’m trying hard to love my ex-husband.  Not just in my heart but in word and deed.  Jesus is still growing me.  Every day He gives me a new insight into what His will is for me.  Die to self.  Love others.  Feed the hungry.  Serve others.  Know Me.  Trust.  Make disciples.

God healed my heart.  He has a purpose for me.  He loves me enough to answer my prayers, big and small.  He wants to get me somewhere.  He keeps walking in front of me and coaxing me forward.  He’s always been faithful to me.  He’s always there.  He’s transforming me.  He wants to transform YOU too.  He has a purpose for YOU too.  Take his hand.  You’ll never regret it.

“It’s just boring.”

That’s how we can sometimes view the story of our own salvation experience if doesn’t seem to have all the elements of a good Hollywood movie. If we’re not careful, we can find ourselves wishing we’d been saved out of a drug addiction or a life of crime. Or maybe that we’d had some sort of vision that led us from voodoo and witchcraft to the Savior.

Some of us have those stories. Most of us don’t.

My own story can seem so plain vanilla as to be embarrassing if I look at it wrong. I grew up going to church because my parents and their parents had for decades. I was taught and believed the Scriptures my whole life. I professed Christ and was baptized at age 10. Riveting stuff, huh? I can just see my neighbors beating a path to my door to hear more about that. Spielberg called just the other day to get the rights to film this one.

Now take Paul. There was somebody with a great story to tell. Persecutor of the church on a mission to yet another city to round up hated believers gets struck down by a blinding light and hears Christ speaking to him. “I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness.” Paul goes on to become one of the pillars of the church, even to the point of giving his life for the cause. That’s got blockbuster written all over it.

But here’s the interesting part. Paul surely retold his story many, many times but a sentence from the retelling in Acts 26:12-23 brings it all home for me. He’s standing in front of Roman governor Festus and King Agrippa and his sister Bernice – powerful people. If he can just get them sympathetic to his case (he’d been wrongly accused by the Jews), he can go free. If there’s a time for grandstanding, this is it. Instead he says, “I have had God’s help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike.” He then adds that his sole message is that the Christ (the Messiah) suffered, died, and rose again as predicted.

When I put the focus of my story all on ME and what happened to ME at the moment of MY salvation, the focus is totally in the wrong place. Yes, I do tell these things but they are not to be glorified. Paul had a killer story to tell, and he does include the details, but he also puts the focus where it belongs: On Christ. And when my part of the story fades into the background where it belongs and Christ takes the focus, the story is now that story that everyone needs to hear.

Everyone has a God story to be written. My God story started years before I even knew God wanted to have a relationship with me. I was someone who always thought I was a good person. Of course I will go to heaven. I lived my life for the people around me. I lived to please my parents, show them that I was someone they could be proud of. I lived to please my boyfriend, to show him that I was someone who could make him happy.

All of our God’s stories start before the Gospel is even shared with us.  Paul, in Acts 26:4-11, is speaking in front of King Agrippa sharing about why he lives the way he does.  He’s sharing the start of his God story.  Paul says,

“The Jews all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem. They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee… I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.”

We were all like Paul at some point.  He strived to be the best Pharisee he knew how to be, yet he had no regard for Jesus Christ.  I strived to be the best girlfriend, the best child, the best student, yet ignored Christ.

Even though, just like Paul, I had no regard for God, God pursued me. He pursued me through his people. Looking back the first place I experienced God’s love was through some family friends. They always welcomed me into their home. They hugged me. They treated me as though I was one of their children. They prayed for me when life at home was hard.  I was never a project for them, but I was someone the genuinely loved and cared for.

God used his people in another way in my life.  Kristen was someone I had met through another friend.  One night we were on a walk and she asked me, “What do you think about God?”  She listened intently as I answered and then asked, “Why do you think you believe that?”  That question forever changed my life and set me towards a new journey.  It wasn’t the words she said, but it was the way she said it.  She really wanted to know.  She didn’t want to know to prove me wrong; she wanted to know because she loved me and ultimately wanted me to know God.  She knew one of the easiest ways to show people love was asking them about themselves and then truly listening to their answer.

Who can you love today? Who can you start a conversation with and ask them about their beliefs? Not treating them like a project, but genuinely loving them and listening, truly being interested in who they are.