Spent the day wheeling...

It has been raining the last couple of days, so my brother called me and wanted to go wheeling today and play in some mud puddles. We had a pretty great time. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of mud holes, but we certainly made the most of the ones we could find. We explored some pretty cool trails in the foothills between the old Emmett Road (from South Slope to Middleton) and Highway 16. I didn't realize just how much land there was between there.

God was definitely with me today. As I was driving to the trails, I was listening to the stereo...Switchfoot's "Awakening" came on. I don't think that the song is necessarily a super-spiritual one, but I was enjoying it and just started worshipping. It's amazing how our words can fall so short of what we're really trying to say. I was praying "God, give me worship." Grammatically speaking, those words sound like I'm asking God to worship me. But that was the only way that I could think to get the emotion behind the words to come out. I don't want God to worship me, I want to worship Him. I was asking him for the opportunity to worship him in song the way that I feel.

More often than not, I don't get to do that at church. I've discovered that I have a heart to lead worship, to facilitate a connection between God and his people where we can get all of our crap and garbage out of the way and allow God to get through to our hearts. But when we sing worship at church, it's the same old-same old, G-C-D chord, Southern-Gospel stuff that we've been singing literally all my life. Be it wrong or right, I can't help but feel annoyed by it and annoyed by the people who plug their ears at the new songs but sing and smile for the same old stuff.

Someone once told me that one of the places anger comes from is disappointment. And he was absolutely correct. I get angry about church because I'm disappointed in people. I'm disappointed that I'm obligated to play the songs they like, but if I'm ever given the opportunity to play worship that I can worship to, it annoys them. It seems so selfish and petty, but it's something that I'm so passionate about and I just don't have any place. It's like a kid with $5 in his pocket and absolutely no place to spend it. He's forced to just be content with knowing he's got $5. But the money does him or anyone else any good because he's got no place to use it. That's how I feel.

So this morning I prayed "God, give me worship." God, give me someplace to operate...someplace to put to good use the passion and desire that you've given me. Give me people with like minds and hearts to worship with.

I also prayed for God to purify me. Nobody's perfect and we all need God's cleansing. I've got things in my life that I want to do and accomplish, both for myself and in ministry for God, and with all my crap in the way, I won't get there. I just want God to shatter me, pick out all the bad, melt me down, skim off the leftover crap, and make me into something beautiful. I'm called to so much more than what I'm living; called to so much more than what I'm currently doing. I'm called to so much more than playing 2nd chair guitar to music I can hardly stand for people who abhor change. I'm called to worship, to lead worship, and to be a distribution hub for the spiritual and monetary blessings of God for other people. And until God works out all the crap in me, I won't get there. And until I let God work it out, it won't get worked out.

On a completely different note (but within the same chord) God is so awesome. We stopped along the trail today on the top of a hill. I jumped out of my Xterra and looked all around me. 360 degrees of beauty. The clouds seemed like I could almost touch them. To the east and west the hills just kept rolling on with the occasional fenceline or sagebrush, to the north was the Butte, shadowed by large rain clouds. To the south was the entire Treasure Valley behind what seemed to be an eternity of more beautiful rolling hills. As the sun shined down on me and I took in the view all around me, I just marveled at how awesome our God is. He creates so much beauty. Everything he creates is good. He is so worthy of all the best in me, yet so undeserving of all my garbage. It's weird, but seeing beauty like that makes me want to be a better person, a better son.