In the Midst of the Storm

I have just started Linda Dillow's book and Bible Study - Satisfy My Thirsty Soul. The focus of this study is to be the worshipper God calls us to be and to see that worship is more than just singing in church, it is a way of life. (Sidenote: I love how God works... shortly after starting this study, our pastor announced that he was going to be preaching a series in April on Worship. Obviously, God has a lesson for me to learn and He is making sure I hear it from more than one source!)

Part of the study is to spend time in worship each morning.. and then to journal a bit about it. OK... I can do that. So this morning I got up around 5:40... popped my earbuds in my ears and turned on my discman (no iPod yet!) and we're off. I listened to some wonderful praise and worship music to get my mind focused... then I turned to the Psalms... Ps. 63 Earnestly I will seek thee... Ps. 62 My soul finds rest in God alone... Ps. 89 I will sing of the Lord's great love forever.. and on I went... but my mind was not in the songs I listened to or in the Psalms I read. My mind was wrapped up in the storm that was raging around my home. Lightening... thunder that shook the roof... rain... and in the midst of it my husband getting ready to travel out of town for 3 hours along the path of the storm.

I was far from worshipful... my heart was not at rest not my mind on God. I found myself trying to praise Him and then crying out "Please keep him safe Lord!"

And in the midst of my frenetic worship, God sent me to Acts 17 and reassured me...

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

What a reminder that God is not far from us... that when we reach out for Him we will find Him just as I did in the midst of the storm.