I Found What I Was Missing!

Psalm 88:2 Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry!

We all go through dry spells in the practice of our spiritual disciplines--times when it seems like we're going through the motions and God has not inclined His ear to our cry. It has felt like that recently for me. I was reading and meditating on Scripture, praying, worshipping God throughout my day, but something seemed to be missing.

This morning, I'm all alone in my house (all my girls have been gone for a week at Grandma's). I put a pot of coffee on and thought, "I'm going to play the piano while it brews." I pulled out some chord charts: Blessed Be Your Name, Take My Life (Holiness), Come Thou Fount, and Refiner's Fire were all in the bench in a stack. I pulled those out and went through them each several times.

It was during the playing that I realized the spiritual connection I was missing was music; but not just listening to music (I've been doing way more than normal in that area!). It was making music, singing out to God, and letting myself get caught up in the playing and the singing and the praying that all happens at the same time. There's something that happens when I'm playing that most of my anti-mystical friends would label "mystical experientialism." Well, whatever you call it (I would call it leanings toward pietism), that's what was missing for me.

Since I tend towards intellectualism at times, when I'm studying the Word I have to discipline myself to not get wrapped up in the technical issues, but to let the Holy Spirit use the exegesis of the Word to change me; but for me that doesn't always happen. But when I do what I did this morning--read from the Sermon on the Mount and then worshipped through playing the piano--I find that the Holy Spirit is able to work on my heart at a much deeper level for some reason. Confession, repentance, adoration, thanksgiving, and all of the affections in me get all wrapped up in a beautiful tangled web that draws me so much closer to God.

My prayer for you today is that you will be able to foster a new depth of intimacy with the God of the Universe whose love for you goes deeper than anything you can imagine!