Ready For Worship

Our new church had its first official worship with the public yesterday. 

I was so excited to take in every part of it.  I planned on getting there early to help set up for the dinner that would be taking place after worship.  I did not want to miss a thing.

Yeah, so that didn't happen.

First of all, Caleb had one of his random Sunday soccer games.  At least it was at 2:00 and church does not start until 5:30.  But, I also had a random Thirty-One meeting at 3:00, but it was right up the road from the soccer field so again, I figured it would not be a problem.  We did not plan on missing Caleb's soccer game and these meetings are only once every other month.  Considering the last meeting was only an hour, I figured it would all work out fine.

Then I noticed that the meeting was advertised as two hours.  Seriously?

Okay, new plan.  We would drive both cars to soccer, I would go to my meeting, everyone else would come home, Nick would take the dinner that I had already made to the church along with the kids while I met them there, and completely failing at my role as a part of the hospitality team at church.

Everyone piled into the van, I walked around to the driver's side and noticed that the back tire was flat.

Again, seriously?

With no time to spare (hee hee, spare, spare tire?), we threw a carseat into Nick's car, piled in and left our kind neighbor and his air compresser to pump it up while we hurried to soccer.  My very kind mother-in-law took me to my meeting, which I was late for since there was all kinds of traffic of families driving to the pumpkin patch right near the home where the meeting was held.  Nick and his dad checked out the tire and found a nail as the guilty culprit of our demise. 

As I sat in my meeting, learning exciting details of what is to come in the next few months of Thirty-One, I kept getting texts from Nick about the nail in the tire and how he was coming to get me and we would go straight to church.  As I smiled and tried to look like I was paying attention, I secretly texted him directions to where I was and kindly reminded him to bring the dinner.

He finally picked me up a little after 5:00 and we hurried to church, making it there by 5:33.  My favorite line of his was, "I got everyone ready at 4:45 and before I knew it, it was 5:00!  How did that happen?"

Yes, welcome to my world.

I say all of this because I know that it is important to have our hearts prepared for worship.  After an afternoon like that, my mind was completely scattered and not at all ready to truly listen.  You all know what I mean, especially parents.  Even when church is on its normal Sunday morning time slot, there are still so many things on our minds as we hurry the family out the door.

How is it possible to be in a worshipful mood when our last thoughts as we push everyone out the door are, "Did I grab the diaper bag?  Does everyone have their Bibles?  Did my son really brush his teeth?  Is the crockpot turned on?  Kids, stop fighting!  Oops, never took the clothes out of the dryer-hopefully no one will notice that this is wrinkled.  Did I bring all the snacks and lunches and sippy cups?"

Again, seriously?  Does that seem like a worshipful spirit to you?

I am so extremely thankful that God meets us where we are.  That He stoops down to us and our busy minds and reminds us that He is there.  That He is more important than games and meetings and flat tires.  Yet, He is there in the games and meetings and flat tires. 

As I stood there, worshipping with people of so many backgrounds and in different languages, I slowly let the stress of the afternoon melt away as we joined together to sing praises to our Lord.  It was a beautiful thing.