Just thought I`d put down in writing a few things that God`s been speaking to me about over these first 24 hours at Momentum.
As a worship leader I have for a few years been going to festivals to pick up some new songs to share with our church back home. Music is a tool I`ve used to encounter God since I was a child. Music is my language of emotion. It has been my therapy and my creative release. I even hear songs in my dreams.
The human heartbeat is a musical rhythm. But a heart contains two chambers. This morning God showed me a picture of a heart with one chamber that was healthy and strong and one that had slightly withered. Sitting in David Westlake`s seminar on the roots of poverty and injustice I began to get choked up as I started to hear God`s heartbeat for the broken.
When I first started at secondary school I used to try to keep my head down so as not to get noticed but then I started to become aware that there were people in my class who got bullied. Something inside of me rose up so that I would speak out to defend them (not always with the most godly language in those days!) That made me a target and I ended up having a tough time for many years. I felt alone and that God-given desire to stand up for injustice shrivelled under the fear of standing out.
Several years later I became ill with ME/CFS. It felt like I had fallen out of the bottom of society. I`m so thankful for the support of my wonderful family and church who have all stood alongside me, plus the support of the welfare system and of course God. I can`t imagine what it would be like to go through that with no support. No one should have to stand alone.
This was something that stood out in Mike Pilavachi`s talks, last night and this morning. We were not designed to live alone. God has always been community and we were made in his image.
I`m not sure yet how God is going to ask me to apply all this. All I know, is that the closer I get to God in worship, the louder I hear his heartbeat and it`s a heart that grieves for the broken. In that place there is the still small voice of God whispering "No one should have to stand alone"
