Amidst the junk

It's funny how God works.

Ok you could probably insert other words than funny there...Frustrating, Annoying, Inconvenient are a few that come to mind.

This morning in worship, I had this brilliant idea (yes, for those unaware, I often perceive myself to be a genius.)...we used paper handcuffs to symbolize how many people are in some way imprisoned and consequently unable to worship the way God desires. So as the service is beginning I get up to explain whats going on and I totally zone out. I said about half of what I wanted and probably unneccessarily repeated half of that! Then as I close my 2 minutes (felt like an hour), I go to pray and instead of saying "Will you pray with me?" I say, "Will you pray for me?" (Which might be the more appropriate question now that I think about it.)

So, I sit down, frustrated that the eloquence in my head becomes jibberish from my mouth. The service continued with people wearing these chains throughout worship. After the sermon, we were to all take part in the Lord's supper which I was pretty excited about. Everyone would come up for intinction, break their chains and have communion. Prior to this however, there were a few more gliches in the service. Nothing huge, but noticable things that caused me to say to myself "this moment is ruined...we made all those stupid chains for nothing!"

Then after all the mistakes, errors, flaws and bloopers, people started coming forward and dropping their chains. We sang through Chris Tomlin's "My Chains are Gone" (Amazing Grace) and I started to realize this was so little about me and the others involved in the service. People came up afterwards and spoke of how meaningful this was and how God had in someway pricked their hearts.

So me and my oft-self-centered worldview got a reality check from the Lord. Amidst my junk, God still brings glory to His name. Hallelujah. When has God shown up in the midst of your humanness?