Romans 8:14

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

I’ve been muddling this over in my mind for quite some time now as I have been hearing God say something very peculiar in my spirit.  Ever heard the phrase: “circumstantial evidence?”  According to Wikipedia, Circumstantial Evidence can be defined as: evidence in which an inference is required to connect it to a conclusion of fact, like a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly—i.e., without need for any additional evidence or the intervening inference.

Ever made a decision, based on “circumstantial evidence?”  Ever made a conclusion based on “circumstantial evidence?”  Ever found out later that you may not have come to the correct decision or conclusion?  Yep!  Me too!  Often what I have perceived to be the obvious solution, answer or direction based on what I could see has turned out to be completely incorrect!  If there is one thing I have discovered about God, it is that He is FULL of surprises!  He is Sovereign and His creativity so vastly surpasses mine that trying to figure Him out consistently leaves me nothing less than frustrated and confused!  Isaiah 55:9 says it like this: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

So, where does that leave us?  In a bad way if we become anything less than completely and utterly dependent on His wisdom!  I remember nearly 20 years ago now, I was leading a worship team for the University I was attending.  Our assignment was to go to local churches and events and lead worship while also representing our University.  It was my first “Big” assignment as a traveling worship leader.  I was responsible to get musicians, coordinate worship lists, practices, venues, etc.  It was a lot of responsibility for a 19-year-old student!  I remember being so excited during auditions when one of the BEST pianists on campus came to audition for my team!!!  He was AMAZING!  He could sight read, he could play any style and more than that – he could hear something ONE TIME and play it like he was the original composer!!!  Seriously???  Wow!!!!!  I was thrilled that I would obviously choose him to be our pianist.  (EVERYONE wanted this guy!!!) In the midst of my excitement, though… there was a very, and I mean VERY soft nudge in my spirit.  I assumed I was just nervous about all that I needed to do… So, we began rehearsals, and BOY oh, BOY did it sound GREAT!

I had a band, I had THE pianist and even a secondary keyboardist, who was also good, but not nearly like the Main guy… she could read music, but had a little issue with getting the feel of a song right away.  She got there, but it wasn’t the instant success I had with my Guy!  She was quiet and a little shy, but she was willing!  She was willing to stretch beyond the boundaries of her comfort zone for the sake of the unity of the team, she had a servant’s heart!  She was not a “diva” or even a “diva wanna be,” she was just contributing her part to the whole.  On the other hand… my Guy – THE Guy, did not have the same spirit.  He wanted to show off, be assertive. It wasn’t always about what I and the others believed were the songs God was directing, it was more about the ones that would show off his skills better.  And very soon, it became clear that I would have to make a decision!  That was the first time I ever had to remove someone from a position.  But, I had to do it.  Worship, real worship only comes out of Unity!  Unity comes when we first submit ourselves to God and then submit ourselves to one another.   (Ephesians 5:21)  It wasn’t about me being the boss… It was about making a decision based first on the leadership of the Holy Spirit that was also in harmony with the team.

It was so hard for me!!!  I HATE to make people upset! I hate to hurt anyone’s feelings!  I, like most people, hate conflict! But, in truth, if I had listened to the barely audible whispers at the beginning, I would have been spared the hard part and I could have simply not given a call back at the beginning.  I Samuel 15:22 says: “obedience is BETTER than sacrifice.” I could have been spared discomfort, intimidation and ridicule, as my Guy was not happy to be dismissed, if I had simply listened to the nudge.

Sometimes we miss the nudge because we are so mesmerized by the “circumstantial evidence!” In I Kings 19, God gave Elijah this illustration… He had been hiding in a cave, so depressed because of the overwhelming “circumstantial evidence” telling him he was all alone and God was not even helping him.  Then God called him to the mountain for a little show and tell.  Elijah experienced a Great Wind, and Earthquake and a Fire… Supernaturally HUGE natural things, but God was not in any of it… and then there was a whisper.  There was a very still small whisper, and there He was.  God was in the whisper.  And when Elijah heard the whisper and listened to it God began to instruct him in the way that would produce the God kind of results he’d been so passionately running after!  Today, if you’ve been chasing the “circumstantial evidence” around you, thinking it is obviously the provision and favor of the Lord, or thinking it is proof that you are NOT in His favor.  Let me encourage you to quiet yourself down and quiet your environment.  Listen for the whisper… Stay attentive to the “direct evidence” of His Word and His still small voice “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”  Psalm 46:10

Circumstances constantly masquerade themselves as Divinity… so, don’t look to them, look to Him! Hebrews 12:2 Over and over, He gives us the reassurance that when we seek HIM, we WILL find Him… Jeremiah 29:13, Proverbs 8:17

Have you ever tried to change something?  Let’s hop out of the “music box” for a moment… anything!  Have you ever tried to change anything?  Unless by some Balaam-esque miracle an inanimate object is reading this post… the answer has to be YES.  We’ve all embarked on the process of change in one way or another.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this principle, perhaps because my life embodies the definition in literally every sense at the moment… I want to share some thoughts I believe the Holy Spirit is stitching into my fabric at present:  First, I want to create a perimeter for my comments…

Isaiah 43:19 says:  “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” (NIV)  We LOVE that, don’t we?  A NEW thing!!!  Who doesn’t want something new?  A new car.  A new house.  A new gadget.  New shoes.  New clothes… We All like NEW!  However, there is a prerequisite to the new… in verse 18, God speaks through Isaiah and says:  “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”  And that’s where some of us… well, maybe not you but that’s where I often get stuck!  Forget the past?  Well, ok, Lord, “Yes!  I will, to the best of my ability, forget the bad things that happened in the past…”  Wait, was there a qualifier there?  Did He say just forget the bad things?

See, I am getting my mind ready to move into a new house with my family and as creative as I like to think I am… this house is so much better than where we are now, that thinking about changing things has left me with a slight mental block.  So, I have been scouring interior design blogs to come up with creative schemes to make this house our Home.  Now, I know I said “new,” but in reality it’s only new to us… as it was built in 1905 and has been completely renovated, though that is not the point.  Here’s the point: In the process of going through numerous before and after pictures on several blogs and seeing things, in all honesty, on many accounts, I may have actually kept the “before” until I saw the “after,” I have come to acknowledge that in order to receive the New Thing it is essential to let go of the old… whether or not it was good!

If you’ve been at this long enough with Jesus, you’ve seen some “good things!”  Some Wonderful things!  I remember amazing seasons of healing miracles growing up…  I had the privilege of coming up right at the end of the Jesus movement in the ‘70’s and then spending my childhood during the “Word” years…  Word of Faith.  Word of Healing. Word of Knowledge. Word!  I saw my tenacious Mother throw up in a McDonald’s cup leaning over the steering wheel of our 1970 Volvo station wagon driving to yet ANOTHER R.W. Shambach tent revival, only to see her drive home in perfect health having been touched by the power of God.  I went to church once with a severely sprained ankle and went home completely healed.  I woke up once with a fever of 104 and chicken pocks covering my body from head to toe, was dragged into the car by my tenacious Mother, driven to the church, anointed by the elders, completely healed and then went home, got ready for school and got on the bus!  I have seen God raise a dead person to life in an elevator being carried out by paramedics… There are “good things” in my memory bank.  I have also seen hypocrisy, abuse, anger, strife, jealousy, betrayal, and crookedness – yes, ALL in the church!  There have also been “bad things.”

But, I believe that God is shaking EVERY-thing in this season, so that the old can fall off… yes the good and the bad, to make way for His NEW thing… the New thing that will usher in the MAIN thing… that being the coming of our Lord Jesus!  Another thing I read in one of those design blogs was that the space from the before pic to the after pic is usually a little longer and a little messier than the observer might think.  “Sometimes progress is ugggggllllly!”  That was what one blogger said in describing the gap between photos… Isn’t that the case?  Before we can improve, we often have to dismantle.  What has the Holy Spirit prompted you to dismantle that you are clinging to like a life raft?  What is that thing that He gave you for one season that He’s asking you to lay down for this season?  Is it a method? A mindset? A way of doing things?  Hey, this is a NEW season!  And for this season the infinitely Creative One has a new method, a new mindset and a new way of doing things!

I can almost see God standing in the midst of the progress, in the midst of the mess in verse 19, can’t you? “See!  I AM doing a new thing!  Even NOW… Do you not perceive it???”  Ha!  Isn’t that how it is?  We’re dismantling, sanding, refinishing, etc … And it’s new, it’s being made over, it’s coming back to life, but perhaps in the moment it looks like chaos.  I think, just like it was at the first creation when the Spirit of God hovered over the chaos and then spoke… So it is in every creative season… so often it looks like chaos, but I want you to quiet down the disturbance and bend your ear ever so close, for the Spirit of the Lord is hovering over the chaos… and in this New Season… He says:  “I have put my words in your mouth and hidden you safely in my hand…” Isaiah 51:16 Speak!  Yes, you Speak!!!  Speak His WORD!!! And Sing!  Psalm 40:3 says:  “He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the LORD.” Let Him impregnate you with His Song! (Forgive me men.  Spiritually speaking, you understand!)

Let Him birth the New in you today… Don’t lead with old methods… Don’t try to worship with old passion… Don’t settle for better… Go for His BEST!  Behold, He is doing a NEW thing… Even NOW it springs forth…

Ahhh, the LIST!  You know the one…  The Song list, musician list, instrumentation list, the file list, date list, gig list, event list. And that doesn’t even begin to touch the work list, the home list, and oh, my lands, have you SEEN the kids list?
And somewhere in the midst of it all we still have our spouse, family and well, yes God!  It’s all there, even for the Worship Leader.Funny how the perception is so often that what is seen on stage or seen in the congregation is the summation of all we do and yet… there are lists!  And too often we find that we need a list just to keep up with our lists…  But, this post is NOT about organization.  Nor is it about time management.  This is about priorities.  It is about our focus. Today, we return to the basics… the bare bone essentials of what we are all about…  Our ambition is to weed through the muddled murky mire that too easily weighs us down and blocks up the pipes from which the clear, pure water of His presence should be flowing through our clay built channels  (2Cor.4:7).  The purpose of this post is to set down the list for a moment, place it aside and return to Joy!  Ah, yes that too often elusive and curt, three lettered word – JOY!

Psalm 16:11 says: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”  Did you read that with me?  Fullness of JOY!!!  Why does it seem that our corporate worship times are often predicated by erratic scrambling, list shuffling, last minute tuning, and the inevitable panic and frustration that comes with it?  Or better yet, perhaps you’ve felt a God shift in your personal life? Perhaps you have broken through in the spirit and God has begun to open up doors and avenues that will give expression to the gift He’s placed inside of you and during what should be pure celebration, strange arguments and strife are breaking out with those you love, or with your team… What is going on? Where is the JOY?

What’s going on is there is a battle being waged on invisible turf to disarm you!  And what better way than make you completely miserable doing the one thing you “love” to do… Worship!  And what happens most often is that because the Word of God is in us, we find ourselves dashing past its mirror hoping not to catch even the slightest glimpse of the ugliness it has revealed about our response to the circumstances we are confronting.  And rather than look square into it and allow it’s water and grace to purify us, we keep walking and pick up our costume of perfection and “for the sake of the list,” we turn our worship into something other than an honest expression of intimacy with Jesus, and it becomes more of a performance than anything else, leaving us less than satisfied in the process.

However, you’re not alone… Look up Nehemiah 8.  In this passage we see Ezra the priest bring out the Law before the people and read it.  And just like you and I, the people saw themselves as falling short.  Verse 9 says: “all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law.”  No one wants to face the reality of their imperfection, and yet His grace is still sufficient… (2Corinthians 12:9)  And Ezra said to them:  “Do not mourn or weep… Go your way and eat the fat and drink the sweet… Do not sorrow, for the JOY of the Lord is your Strength!” Do you hear the freedom in that? Do you hear the grace of God?

And before I write another thing, hear this! “Do not sorrow, for the JOY of the Lord is your Strength!!!”  Right now, put aside the lists that are bogging you down and pick up the list of His mercy… (Lamentations 3:22-23)  Think on things that are pure and good… (Philippians 4:8) And above all, pull up your chair and gather around the table He has prepared for you… yes, even in the presence of your enemies (Psalm 23:5), and “taste and see that the Lord, He is GOOD!” (Psalm 34:8)

This is Building Judah… our purpose and goal is to build you up and encourage you, to strengthen the hands that hang down so that you can fulfill all that God has placed within you to do for His Kingdom’s sake… No gift undiscovered, no skill undeveloped (or under developed)! And not just for the moment, but for every moment He gives until we lay rejoicing and prostrate before Him with our every earthly crown thrown at His feet!  So, come on – “get your PRAISE ON!  And get into JOY – Today – Right NOW – Seriously!  Don’t waste one more second of your precious time doing anything less…