Bless the Lord, Oh My Soul (Passion 2014)
At 5:30 am, we loaded up the car and hit the road for Passion 2014 in Atlanta. Even though the sun was not up and I was running on 4 hours of sleep after working the past 4 out of 5 nights, nothing could quench my excitement. Four years ago, I went to Passion for the first time, thinking it would be a one-time thing for me. Now, I was headed back for my fourth year in a row, filled with a familiar anticipation yet knowing that I would once again be blown away by what God had in store.
Passion takes preparation. Heart preparation. You can go blindly, like I did the first time I went, not realizing how much I needed to prepare my heart before going. But when you allow God to prepare and soften your heart before going, you will be much more ready to experience God and worship Him in a new way.
As I prepared this year through prayer, Psalm 103 kept coming to mind. "Bless the Lord, oh my soul. All my innermost being, praise His holy name."
So often, our prayers center around God blessing us. It was tempting to pray for God to bless me at Passion. But this year, my heart had just one desire - to bless the Lord. God, I want to bless you this year. You don't have to do anything for me. I just want to bless you. Create in me a fountain of worship that bubbles up within me and pours out to you at Passion this year.
To prepare, I began to meditate on all the reasons that I have to worship Jesus: a successful graduation from nursing school this year, a new job that I love, a new apartment...the list could go on and on. I looked on my list and saw that all of my reasons revolved around how God has blessed me. And I saw it again - a focus on God blessing me instead of me blessing God. In that moment, I began to wonder. What if I don't always need a reason to worship. Could I still worship if everything was falling apart? What if I worshiped Him for no reason at all except that He is God, the one who is absolutely worthy of my worship? Those reasons never change despite my shifting circumstances. Whether my life is blessed or completely falling apart, I am free to worship the one who is Sovereign over all. I need no reason except that He is my Savior, and I love Him.
Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Even for no reason, bless the Lord.
Blessing the Lord at Passion looks different. Sometimes it looks like flashing lights, loud music, and a bunch of college students dancing around and shouting louder than a touchdown at the Superbowl. Other times, it looks like thousands of hands raised and eyes closed as the music fades and only our voices are lifted. The musicians leading us literally lay down their instruments and kneel down on the stage. In quietness, we are aware of our need for Christ, the beauty of the gospel, and His relentless love for us.
Sometimes it looks like hype, and sometimes it looks like humility. All is worship. Sometimes the awareness of the presence of God makes you dance and shout, and sometimes it makes you stand utterly still and silent with tears rolling down your face.
Jesus deserves our hype. But He also deserves our quiet humility.
He alone is worthy of worship. Bless the Lord, oh my soul.
Year after year, Passion reminds me how much I need worship in my life. Not just the routine worship that I get used to, but a heartfelt worship that makes me want to dance and shout and cry and bow.
Worship is a way of communicating with God. He speaks to us and we speak back to Him. Worship is also a way of communing with God, of entering into His very presence, His throne room. And you cannot be in the presence of God and leave unchanged.
The amazing thing about worshiping the God of the universe is this: We don't always have to have a reason. You may have a list ten miles long of how God has blessed your life, or you may have a hard time thinking of one thing. Either way, we have one amazing reason to bless the Lord, and it makes all other things pale in comparison. We were lost without Him, and He made a way to re-unite Himself with us personally. Through the cross of Jesus Christ, we are freed to know God and be known by Him. He is our Salvation, our Rescuer. In Him is abundant and everlasting life. His love for us is reason enough to worship. His love alone is reason enough to bless Him.
When we enter into worship with the sole purpose of blessing the Lord, a funny thing happens. We leave feeling blessed in return, even when that wasn't the point at all. That's how my heart feels right now, as I breathe in deeply what I experienced at Passion. Over and over my heart sings, Bless the Lord, oh my soul. All my inmost being, praise His holy name. Not for how He's blessed my life...because my life is absolutely nothing without Him. The good things in my life actually look like filthy rags when I gaze on the cross and see my sin that put Him there. It is only because of God's love and salvation expressed through the cross and resurrection of the living Jesus that I am free to worship.
A renewed picture of grace and the gospel brings me to my knees with tears rolling down my face in great humility, but it also makes me want to stand with arms held high, dancing and shouting with as much hype as I can muster. All because of Jesus, who He is and what He has done for us.
Bless the Lord, oh my soul. All my inmost being, praise His holy name.
Passion takes preparation. Heart preparation. You can go blindly, like I did the first time I went, not realizing how much I needed to prepare my heart before going. But when you allow God to prepare and soften your heart before going, you will be much more ready to experience God and worship Him in a new way.
As I prepared this year through prayer, Psalm 103 kept coming to mind. "Bless the Lord, oh my soul. All my innermost being, praise His holy name."
So often, our prayers center around God blessing us. It was tempting to pray for God to bless me at Passion. But this year, my heart had just one desire - to bless the Lord. God, I want to bless you this year. You don't have to do anything for me. I just want to bless you. Create in me a fountain of worship that bubbles up within me and pours out to you at Passion this year.
To prepare, I began to meditate on all the reasons that I have to worship Jesus: a successful graduation from nursing school this year, a new job that I love, a new apartment...the list could go on and on. I looked on my list and saw that all of my reasons revolved around how God has blessed me. And I saw it again - a focus on God blessing me instead of me blessing God. In that moment, I began to wonder. What if I don't always need a reason to worship. Could I still worship if everything was falling apart? What if I worshiped Him for no reason at all except that He is God, the one who is absolutely worthy of my worship? Those reasons never change despite my shifting circumstances. Whether my life is blessed or completely falling apart, I am free to worship the one who is Sovereign over all. I need no reason except that He is my Savior, and I love Him.
Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Even for no reason, bless the Lord.
Blessing the Lord at Passion looks different. Sometimes it looks like flashing lights, loud music, and a bunch of college students dancing around and shouting louder than a touchdown at the Superbowl. Other times, it looks like thousands of hands raised and eyes closed as the music fades and only our voices are lifted. The musicians leading us literally lay down their instruments and kneel down on the stage. In quietness, we are aware of our need for Christ, the beauty of the gospel, and His relentless love for us.
Sometimes it looks like hype, and sometimes it looks like humility. All is worship. Sometimes the awareness of the presence of God makes you dance and shout, and sometimes it makes you stand utterly still and silent with tears rolling down your face.
Jesus deserves our hype. But He also deserves our quiet humility.
He alone is worthy of worship. Bless the Lord, oh my soul.
Year after year, Passion reminds me how much I need worship in my life. Not just the routine worship that I get used to, but a heartfelt worship that makes me want to dance and shout and cry and bow.
Worship is a way of communicating with God. He speaks to us and we speak back to Him. Worship is also a way of communing with God, of entering into His very presence, His throne room. And you cannot be in the presence of God and leave unchanged.
The amazing thing about worshiping the God of the universe is this: We don't always have to have a reason. You may have a list ten miles long of how God has blessed your life, or you may have a hard time thinking of one thing. Either way, we have one amazing reason to bless the Lord, and it makes all other things pale in comparison. We were lost without Him, and He made a way to re-unite Himself with us personally. Through the cross of Jesus Christ, we are freed to know God and be known by Him. He is our Salvation, our Rescuer. In Him is abundant and everlasting life. His love for us is reason enough to worship. His love alone is reason enough to bless Him.
When we enter into worship with the sole purpose of blessing the Lord, a funny thing happens. We leave feeling blessed in return, even when that wasn't the point at all. That's how my heart feels right now, as I breathe in deeply what I experienced at Passion. Over and over my heart sings, Bless the Lord, oh my soul. All my inmost being, praise His holy name. Not for how He's blessed my life...because my life is absolutely nothing without Him. The good things in my life actually look like filthy rags when I gaze on the cross and see my sin that put Him there. It is only because of God's love and salvation expressed through the cross and resurrection of the living Jesus that I am free to worship.
A renewed picture of grace and the gospel brings me to my knees with tears rolling down my face in great humility, but it also makes me want to stand with arms held high, dancing and shouting with as much hype as I can muster. All because of Jesus, who He is and what He has done for us.
Bless the Lord, oh my soul. All my inmost being, praise His holy name.
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