Encountering God's Presence

My first experience encountering God’s presence was at a church in Northern Virginia. I was almost fourteen. My father had been going to this church for a few months and I’d noticed a significant change in him, so I went along one Sunday morning to ‘scope it out’. In some ways, this Sunday morning church service matched the image I had created in my mind of what it should be like… that is, until I encountered God’s presence.

It started when the people were singing. I looked at the people around me, especially the young teens that were my age, and I saw the passion and joy bubbling up from their hearts and pouring out of their faces. Before I even understood what it was, my heart began to want what they had. I started to look a little more closely at the words they were singing. It wasn’t just songs ‘about’ God – they were singing right to Him! And they didn’t simply observe and enjoy the music that someone else was sharing. Everyone was involved. It wasn’t a concert. This was an encounter. A God Encounter.

I met God that day in that church sanctuary. Without fully understanding all that was happening in my heart at the time, I decided in that moment that I wanted more of God… I needed more of Him. My life has felt so desperate and ‘aimless’ until that moment. God wasn’t a “detached supernatural being who casually looked from afar” like I had thought – He was right there in that room with us. Now, my desperation was to to learn about God and get to know Him the way these other people did. And that day changed my life.

My faith journey has taken a lot of steps since then, but occasionally my mind will drift back to that day. Even though I’m a HUGE music buff, I can’t remember what songs were sung that day – but I’ll never forget the feeling of recognizing God’s presence for the very first time. The music didn’t call God down from the heavens… the song from our hearts did.

I wonder sometimes how people in our church family might answer questions related to corporate worship: Why do we sing on Sunday mornings? What does ‘worship’ really mean? What’s our goal/purpose to the time set aside for ‘worship’? Pushing a little deeper: If I were to ask you one-on-one (and you felt comfortable enough to be honest with me), what does Sunday morning worship time mean for you? Are you really able to ‘encounter God’ and His presence? How does that impact you, or does it?

Here’s the truth: It’s not enough to simply sing songs that make us feel good and happy. It’s not enough to sing songs that make us think about God… If we miss encountering God’s presence, then we’ve missed it all. Worship is so much more than songs about God or to God! Worship is a complete response (physical, mental, spiritual) to God in His fullness. And, worship of God can be expressed without any music at all… We can express worship to God through actions, words, choosing to be silent and still…  (those are just a few.) It’s beautiful and authentic and even spontaneous.

My hearts prayer is that God would stir up in us a hunger for a deeper encounter with Him; that worship for each of us would become interwoven into the fabric of our every day, our every moment. That somewhere we’d move beyond the songs and allow the expressions within our heart to be released. AND that through this deepening encounter with God, our times of corporate worship (where we all come back together) would be even more focused, powerful, and life-changing - because it’s God’s Presence!