Keep on pressing

I just wanted to share something that was on my heart about pressing into the presence of God while in worship [reverent honor and respect paid to God] through song and dance. This has been placed on my heart and I wanted to share it with everyone, hopefully this will be a word of encouragement!

Yesterday I had work, and work was long and tiring. I haven’t worked a 12 hour shift in awhile so it was physically draining. Work involved a lot of lifting, moving, pushing, and carrying as it is the nature of the business. I am truly blessed with the job God gave me and I love it. The fact that I get to be involved with people all day makes the time spent there worth it. So I got home late, and had to wake up early for school the next morning.

I wasn’t feeling to well when I woke up the next morning as I got ready for Chapel. I was overly tired, my feet were hurting, and my arms were sore. Let us say I would rather be in bed. For those of you who don’t know, we have a class called Chapel at the beginning of the day which involves worship, the word, announcements, and our leadership group meetings at the end. Now I had a choice during worship, I could have just sat there in the seats and enjoyed some good music, maybe stand for a little bit OR I could make the choice to truly press into the presence of God even though my physical body wanted otherwise. This meant standing when I wanted to sit, jumping when I couldn’t jump, and raising my hands when my arms when I couldn’t. Doing this while my arms ached, feet hurt, and body was sore. True sacrifice which in turn is true worship and I believe God honors that.

It was awe inspiring. The feeling of worshiping God when my physical body couldn’t gave me unbelievable energy. The presence of God was so overwhelming that I started to literally cry. The presence of His love for me was truly amazing and I hope everyone has the chance to feel His love for us. He loves you so much and wants to share His love with you, but you need to let Him. He already loves you unconditionally; He just wants you to love Him the same.

My challenge for anyone who reads this is when in worship, when you feel like sitting down, don’t. When you want to lower your hands, press in harder, when you want to stop praying, pray louder. Truly give all you are to Him.

Psalm 59:16
But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble

Psalm 28:7
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.