But How?

But How?

As I stated earlier, Jesus tells us to approach God as little children.  I believe this includes approaching Him during praise and worship.  Perhaps to really connect with God, spirit to spirit and on an emotional level, we need to get back to the methods we used as children.  To do this, we must ask the Lord what happened along the way to adulthood to cause us to lose touch with our inner children.  I hesitate to use this term because it is used so absent mindedly in the secular community, but please bear with me for a moment.  

Spontaneity is one quality that children have plenty of.  Recently, I have had some pretty awesome experiences when I simply turned on some praise music and began to sing.  Suddenly I stop what I am doing and become overwhelmed by the goodness of God.  This is an act of spontaneity and always brings blessings.  The other day I was singing the words "His eyes are on the sparrows" , totally feeling God's presence, tears streaming down my face.  I was facing the window and noticed the top of the tree had over a dozen or so sparrows in it.  Co incidence?, I think not.  A perfect example as to how spontaneity can lead to an experience with God which might otherwise have been missed.  

It is so worth taking time out of our schedules.  Even  a 5 minute encounter with the Lord can bless our days to the extent that they become more productive.  Though that should never be our motive,  worship is first and foremost for God, we do receive blessings as a result.  

We have all heard to stop, drop and roll in the event of a fire?  Well, stop,drop and pray if you want to light the fire of the Holy Spirit!

Back to the "how" of it.  As I was thinking about how to get in touch with that inner child who knows how to connect with God, I suddenly had a memory.   I was in church with my aunt and cousins and was very young, per school in fact because I could not yet read.  We were singing and I was holding a hymnal but because I could not read I was making up the words.  I did not understand the concept of worship, but I understood music and I loved it.  

I rembember singing the words "Delaware Bridge"....presumably because we had to go across it to get from Delaware to Massachusetts.  In any case, my aunt, upon realizing that I was not singing the proper words, rebuked me.  I was so embarrassed and ashamed that I quit singing.  In fact,  I am not certain I ever sang much after that.  

I believe the Lord brought this incident to my remembrance to show me how the devil used an adult to squelch my innate childlike ability to just worship in my own way.  The devil knows how dangerous worship is so it is in his best interest to shut us down as soon as possible.  Shame and embarrassment are his greatest allies.  

I submit to you that we all have similar incidents in our pasts.  Whether  we can remember them or not matters little.  The end result is to interfere with our ability to approach God as little children.  

Today, let's take a moment to ask God what might have shut us down in the past and ask Him to heal us.  This is an important first step toward having the shackles removed which bind us to earth when we worship.  When we approach God with the boldness and exuberance of little children, we will be set free to join with the angels as we proclaim " holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come!"