December 8, 2019, 1 Chronicles 16 – Post 2 – ISSL Reflection

IV.
How is it? Have you ever found yourself in a church service, worship service, class and those around you seem full of praise, and thanks and a worshipful spirit and you just are not there?

I have.

What do I do?

Do I ignore the spirit of those around me because I can’t find it in myself to be there? Do I withdraw deeper into myself and no-praise, no-worship place?

I have to admit, at times that is what happened for me.

But I wonder if there is another way?

Can I accept the spirit of those around me? Acknowledge their spirits? And let that environment, that community support me?

Maybe just as the Spirit can inhabit my prayerful groans (Romans 8.26-27) and complete what I am lacking in prayer, so can the community I find myself in, share their voices of praise and worship with me and my lack of an offering is combined with their offering to God and in some way the Spirit can bring all that to God in a harmony greater than any one of us can offer.

Let me confess that does not always happen for me. But as I spend time with this passage, I see more and more how a community in worship has a strength and power that can be shared with one another.

V.
Look back over David’s song of praise and focus on those elements that capture you today.

What speaks to you and for you? What helps voice what you don’t have the strength or energy to voice for yourself today?

Let’s mull that over for a while and then get back together.

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}


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