The Ebenezer

For: Essentials in Worship theology

While reading in this session, the image of #GodAsCreator absolutely blew my mind. I had never imagined him creating all of the universe in a similar way, having a similar mindset as me while I create. I become somewhat Giddy while creating. It’s an adventure of sorts while painting. Not only is God just a painter of the sunset, but I’m beginning to fully understand him to be the “Originator of Light, time, matter, energy, stars, galaxies, mathematics, microorganisms, sound, narwhals, rock strata, canyons, flies and venus fly traps…”(Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology). This God took time to create me. And I, in myself, am an amazement. From my blinking eye, to the memories stored inside my brain, to my ever beating heart, to the cells continually multiplying, God breathed into me life. I am a masterpiece that is sure.

As I begin to fully understand this, I begin to realize my purpose to worship him. How could I have any other response?

“Hallelujah! You who serve God, praise God!
Just to speak his name is praise!
Just to remember God is a blessing—
now and tomorrow and always.
From east to west, from dawn to dusk,
keep lifting all your praises to God!

^4-9 God is higher than anything and anyone,
outshining everything you can see in the skies.
Who can compare with God, our God,
so majestically enthroned,
Surveying his magnificent
heavens and earth?
He picks up the poor from out of the dirt,
rescues the wretched who’ve been thrown out with the trash,
Seats them among the honored guests,
a place of honor among the brightest and best.”

Psalm 113 (MSG)

Wilt, Dan. Essentials in Worship Theology. Dan Wilt, 2009. 22. Train Your Worship Teams Online. 2009. Web. 23 Feb. 2012. <http://members.worshiptraining.com/courses/essentials-in-worship-theology/>.

For: Essentials in Worship Theology

I feel almost overwhelmed with the amount of insightful information I have begun to take in within the past week. Both my brain and my heart are full and need to digest it seems. Here are some reflections on one little piece of all the material I’ve read this week that has stuck with me all week.

” ‘Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful….’ From 1 Corinthians 12 in The Message In the film Chariots Of Fire, the runner Eric Liddell is asked why he loves to run so much. ‘When I run,’ Eric answers, ‘I feel His pleasure.’ What is it that you do, that when you do it, you ‘feel His pleasure?’ I would contend that whatever came to your mind, is a language that your soul speaks with God, a language through which God speaks to you, and a language through which God will speak to the world through you! In this light, creativity becomes not an option or luxury for the Christian, but rather a necessity; it is your unique language of prayer, a language of the soul for others and for Jesus’ ministry to be enacted through you. We must live creatively to be whole, and to fulfill God’s purposes through us.”(Wilt, Sacred Creativity).

That is the thought that resounds in my head after this whole week. It is one that I have had before, it is information I have known and understood in my life, but now, somehow, I have just had a deeper understanding. I now see that I am made in the image of my creator, which doesn’t just mean that I look like him, but that I am like him. I have his mannerisms, I have the same loves, I have the same thinking patterns as him.

If I deny creativity to myself, I then am struggling against who God has designed me to be. It is also this thought that it is a language that I can communicate with him, that is uniquely mine, and it is then my way of communicating him to this culture. Someone I know once said that taking ministry in the Church away from those who are truly called to minister in the Church is like taking the water away from the fish. It is a way to breathe. But for those whose calling it is not, it is a way to suffocate. If someone told me my only way of worshipping God was to play basketball, I would do it, but it would be more along the lines of suffocation in a lot of ways. However, singing and painting seem to bring fresh air to my soul.

I loved how Dan Wilt explained this soul language that is unique to the individual. May I understand this communication with my maker in a deeper way yet to come.