as I wait for you

Last night, our worship team was rehearsing late into the night to prepare for our huge Easter service, Easter at Eola. It's a pretty big event, and we're all really pumped about it. For the first time in my life, I'm participating in Easter service, where our church will take over the downtown amphitheater and turn it into an outreach event like I've never seen before. We're partnering up with local service organizations to make Easter a true service for everyone, whether you have a million dollars in the bank or barely a penny to your name.

For the worship team, it's a huge opportunity. We have actual roadies and professional sound/lighting people coming in to work this event, and we have a stage like none we've ever played on. The sound, just from where we'll be standing, will likely knock our socks off, and that's not even the full scope and range of the sound the congregation will hear. It's going to be incredible. I think I'm going to feel like I was kidnapped by, like, U2, or something.

But if I can be a little transparent and vulnerable here... it's easy to get selfish. Rather, it's easy for me to get selfish. I think it would be almost a cop-out for me to say that Satan was attacking me last night because he knows that this weekend is going to be like nothing Orlando has ever seen - my behavior was really my own last night, I'm afraid. By all accounts, rehearsal went very well last night, the music sounded amazing, and everything came together the way it should. Except I just wasn't feeling it at all. That bothered me, being part of Holy Week, and being unable to focus on anything but myself. I was irritated. Bothered by little things. Hearing only mistakes, wrong notes, bad choices, instead of all the good things happening. Wanting to go home and sit on the couch because I was just that tired and over it all. Even during opening and closing prayer, I felt a million miles away from the excitement and anticipation of this weekend, and even farther away from the One I knew was right there with me.

Being part of such a highly-visible ministry, it's hard to know what to do with myself when I don't feel particularly worshipful, and yet I still am up on stage, being called to lead. My friend Kelly, also sharing the stage with me, has told me before that when it's not happening for her, she throws herself into it anyway, which, in the end, has the same effect of a depressed person forcing themselves to smile: before you know it, you're genuinely happy, you're worshiping, you're right there with Him. That didn't work last night, and it usually does work.

One of my favorite artists, Brooke Fraser, put it best in a song she wrote entitled "Faithful":

There's distance in the air and I cannot make it leave
I wave my arms' round about me and blow with all my might
I cannot sense you close, though I know you're always here
But the comfort of you near is what I long for

When I can't feel you, I have learned to reach out just the same
When I can't hear you, I know you still hear every word I pray
And I want you more than I want to live another day
And as I wait for you maybe I'm made more faithful

All the folly of the past, though I know it is undone
I still feel the guilty one, still trying to make it right
So I whisper soft your name, let it roll around my tongue,
Knowing you're the only one who knows me
You know me

Show me how I should live this
Show me where I should walk
I count this world as loss to me
You are all I want
You are all I want

Last night's experience made me realize how desperate I still am for Him, even after years of this journey together. I think the times I need Him most are exactly times like last night, when I'm so not feeling it and can't get into the worship mode no matter what I do, or even days like today, this rather atypical version of Good Friday, with the sun is shining, the breezes are soft, the temperature is perfect, I'm well-rested (score!), I'm feeling pretty great, and it would be so easy to forget the constancy of God, no matter what my mood is at that moment. This weekend is all about the elimination of distance, for me and for the entire world. Jesus died and rose from the cross so that the sins that kept us at a distance are forgiven, wiped clean, taken on by stronger shoulders and cast away. And remembering that, particularly in the moments where I put so much emphasis on "feeling" it and making that feeling the basis of my worship, makes me praise Him for being so much bigger than emotion, fickle as emotion is, and being so constant and so ever-present that even my worst moments of selfish pride, navel-gazing, and self-absorption cannot pull me away from Him. I may feel a million miles away from God, and yet He is right there with me. His promise holds true.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.