Right now I am sitting in worship in perhaps what is the largest house (Trace’s) of the houses our students are staying in at San Blas (the cape in the panhandle of Florida). This piece of land is lightly touched upon by residential development, very sparsely, especially in comparison to say Panama City, FL or Myrtle Beach, SC. The feeling in Trace’s house as we worship is indeed powerful while 220 of my closest brothers and sisters lift praises to the Lord of this earth, the Lord of this universe, and Lord of His Kingdom, the heavens. We sing, “We are yours,” together. There is power in numbers when experiencing a moment such as this. The girls sing. The guys sing. Of course, the girls sound much more graceful than the guys in the gentle sound of their voices. We are singing that we are God’s owned ones, perhaps also said His Chosen Ones. We are meant to be here because we are here. We believe in something greater than ourselves; therefore we will give our spring break to serve this town and these people in order to share that we are His. “You are the everlasting God, the everlasting God. You do not faint. You won’t grow weary. You are the Defender of the weak…” We believe together. We become one with Christ as we sing His mighty praises into the clouds above our head in the midst of this starry night, perhaps reminiscent of a Van Gogh masterpiece. The Holy Spirit dwells amongst us. He dwells within us. He brings us together as the inner fruit of our heart flourishes into the gifts we expressed in His Creation today. We continue to sing, “He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane. I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy. When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by Glory, I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me. Oh, how he loves us. Oh how he loves us.” I think often times we lift up words to God without thinking of the meaning behind those words. What do we mean by what we sing? When in the midst of a good storm (from the thrill of an adventure or from a valley of adversity), we are eclipsed by God’s Glory. In the joy of an adventure or the sadness of a valley, do we realize how beautiful God is in His affections for us? He loves us. His affections are great towards us as He yearns for us in His enjoyment in relational time. God loves us. Perhaps we know that God loves us but at the same time fully understanding that love becomes incomprehensible. We sing praises to God because we love him, and the words of these songs transform genuine efforts to know Him. Because we praise Him, we begin to know him. If you would like to hear the sounds of our praises, click here. Please realize that this is a podcast of almost all of our entire worship time, which is close to twenty-five minutes total. The acoustic vibe created by the music was phenomenal, but it just a long clip.
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