This past week was filled with “things to do”  some of which, quite frankly, I’m a little apprehensive about.  But what ever, I mean who doesn’t right?  All week no matter what I did, I seemed to go exactly nowhere and get exactly nothing done.  What do you do in times like these?

I’m no fool, (well don’t quote me on that).  I figure OK, I know in my soul, I just need to be with the Lord.  Put all this “to do” business behind for a moment and satiate the thirst that I’m dieing for.  So that’s what I do, crack the word.  I’m looking here, reading there, usually this is where God and I meet.  I’m looking I’m listening… I got nothing.  no reassurance, no presence, no nothing.  One more thing not going anywhere.  Now I’m sure it’s not God, it’s me, but some how I’m missing it?  So of course I close my eyes and start to poor out anxiety, confess sin, ask for a heart change and help.  This too is familiar ground for God and me, and here too I find that I’m deaf,  blind, and  wondering… now what?  Well I’ll just keep on, on keeping on, right?  Press ahead.

Day after day all week this is how it goes; struggle, confess,  submit and hear nothing!  Friday comes and I’m getting a little worried.  I have  an Easter message at Jr high youth group tonight.  I’m looking of some sense of Gods presence even though I know all the promises.  I know God is here.  I know he’s got my back, that the Holy Spirit will give me the words to speak, that his Word never goes out empty.  Yet I’m unsettled with out the assurance of his presence.

Well Friday night  youth group  comes and goes and i find that….yep you guessed it….I “tanked it”.  No I mean “tanked it hard”.  I’m all over the place, took on too much passage for not enough time, stumbled over the words.  I’m sure that at least half the kids had no idea what I was talking about.  As the kids look at me with that glassy eyed look, I’m thinking…. “yep tanked it….ouch”!   Saturday morning comes and I’m thinking “God this has got to get better right”?  Thursday I’m giving a sex talk… yes that’s right I said SEX talk.  To make matters worse it’s at UNH, not my usual audience, more than a little uncomfortable.  Still worse yet, Im speaking to the fraternities and  sororities (mostly sororities)!  Oh my… HELP!  Not a great time to be insecure about hearing form God.  Definitely feeling unequal to the calling.

Saturday a.m. finds me with out wife and child and some time to kill.  So I pick up the old chainsaw and head to the back 40 to work on the paintball field.  Two hours of clearing dead wood and making God’s beautiful creation more conducive to war and killing, and I’m feeling the burn in the old arms.  I take a break by walking the course and marking the boundaries.  On returning, I go to start the chain saw again, only to find it will not start.  Great!  Classic! ( my new phrase this week, it means, “what on this earth would possess me to think, that any thing could actually go according to plan).

Generally speaking I’m thick,  and not real bright, but i get it.  “OK God I’m listening, you want me to go home?”  “I’m done here right?”   Then I hear it…feel it… know it.  Gods voice.  “Worship me”.  That’s it.   Just “worship me”.  I stop.   Pause.  Hesitate.  why do I do that?  Why does my heart resist what I know is best?  Pride?  selfishness?  stubbornness?  Do you do that?  Am I alone in this?

I figure it’s the heart thing.  The real thing that God desires for, and from me.   Not the obligatory time in the word or the prayer time that  has all the right parts to it.  He is calling me to the straight up, no hidding, emotional reality of worshiping.  Just me Him and the woods.  no chainsaw to escape with, no wife or kids to use to avoid Him, no to do list.  I let it out.  No belt it out Pavarotti mind you.  Just me quietly praising God.  One song, then another.

Then I hear him again.  “What are doing out here?”  “20 kids who don’t know me come here to play  paintball every week twice a week, what are you doing out here?” ” Your right Lord I’m sorry, what AM I doing out here?”  and I spend the next few moment lifting the students up, praying that their names would be added to the book of life, that they would become sons and daughters of God, co -hers in the kingdom with Jesus!  In that time I realize that God does not desire sacrifice for sacrifice sake..  but rather my heart.  There is no substitute for the real thing, my soul knows it, God knows it, and I know it.  It might take some emotional work, some bumps and bruises, but im hoping to grow, to learn, to stretch out and worship Him in Spririt and Truth.