Undignified

Psalm 14:2-3 "The Lord looks down from heaven and the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one."

For much of my life I've felt like the stiff religious girl. With this passage though, God is showing me a different way to look at it. Passionate. I can NEVER be too into my God! I can NEVER be too obsessed in pleasing Him. You might be wondering how I get that from these verses. Allow me to explain. :)

2 Samuel 6:14-16 "David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, while he and the entire house of Isreal brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart."

David (in the Psalm and his story in 2 Samuel) reminds me that I am not the best. This humbles me, "no one is good, not even one." I'm not too into God, that's impossible. I'm not even close! While this does humble me extremely it also encourages me! If I would just stop trying to compare myself to those around me I wouldn't be worrying if I looked like a freak. If I keep comparing myself to Jesus I will stay humble and not slow down my attempt to be better. When we try and compare ourselves to our neighbor who we think is less spiritual we get an attitude that says, "I'm doin better then them, maybe I can kick back a little."

2 Samuel 6:20- "When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!" David said to Michal, "It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord's people Israel-I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor."

Isaiah 58:1 "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet..." Don't hold back? Could that mean be undignified? :D "... Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Judah their sins."



I often have to remind myself of this subject. I have a two foot long "JesusFreak" design on my back car window just for this purpose. I'm not one to hide my faith but I am one to let myself feel I'm weird or crazy. I WILL BE UNDIGNIFIED FOR MY SAVIOR! It's ok if I'm excluded for my passion in Christ. So many other Christians have experienced much worse. I will not allow myself to be lukewarm. I am a JesusFreak.

How bold are we in our faith? Is the strength of our convictions and beliefs determined by the crowd we are with? Are we faithful in our walk with the Lord as long as things run smooth or are we sold out for Him even to the point of death?

1 Timothy 1:7-9 "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life-not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time."

Follow the Leader?

Tuesday night I went to a worship service called The Exchange. It’s about an hour and half long worship service with usually an acoustic guitar and a few singers. After worship they will start to call up anyone who needs to be healed and might have a devotion or something. That’s about the time I’ll usually leave, not because I don’t agree with it… I just don’t know what I think yet. Anyway, that’s not what I want to focus on, what I do wanna talk about is these two little girls I saw there probably about the age of seven. You see The Exchange is all about the families being together, which I think isAWESOME. It’s so cool to be worshiping and hear little kids running around laughing or worshiping with you. This can be distracting (especially if they’re crying) but if you get into the right zone you tend not to mind. Tonight though, I was focusing on some of the children and thinking about how the verses that talk about children. Matthew 19:14 – Jesus said, “let all the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

So I was watching all the kids dance and sing and run and play when two particular girls caught my eye. One of these little girls I mentioned (lets call her… Ann… just to make things easier) was standing next to her parents worshiping. Now, when I say worshiping I mean this little seven year old girl had her eyes closed, both hands lifted high, and was singing boldly. I was surprised. There are many christians who do not have the boldness and strength to worship like that.

I’m NOT saying that in order to have true worship you must worship with your hands lifted high and doing many “outwardly” signs of worship. In the past couple months I have experienced MANY different kinds of worship and I’ve seen many people who seem to be truly genuine. Worship is a matter of the heart. I think though, that there is still something to worshiping outwardly it takes some courage sometimes to not care what others think of you. It can show and test that true matter of the heart. I always think of the song that goes, “and I’ll become even more undignified than this” … well I guess it was David who said it first haha In 2 Samuel 6:22 when Michal called him out for dancing like a mad man.

OK, back to the little girls… Now there was a second girl (lets call her Liz), about the same age and apparently Ann’s friend. Liz was sitting a row or two in front of Ann with some other young kids. For about 30 minutes or so all she did was look back at Ann and copy everything she did (except for closing her eyes of course because her eyes were on Ann). If Ann raised her hands or raised just one hand, so did Liz. If Ann put her hands on her heart, so did Liz. You get the point.

So after a while of this (about 30 min like I said before) Liz ran up to Ann and her mom and started to suggest/ask something of the two of them. After some conversation between the 3 Ann ended up moving up to sit with Liz and the other kids. They continued to worship, Liz copying Ann as before, just with the two of them standing right next to each other. After about a song of this Liz got down on her knees and bowed down. I watched as Liz lay there for a couple minutes and Ann just kept worshiping her own way not really paying attention to Liz. It was about this time that I started to relate these two girls to myself and others.

How often do we get so focused on someone else that we think has it all figured out that we miss the point completely? Instead of searching and praying to God to teach us how to act and respond to His love we ask or look around for whatever sounds the best. We all need people to look up to and people to learn from. It’s impossible to do it on our own, but we have to question everything we’re taught and see. While what Liz was copying from Ann wasn’t anything real harmful what if later on Liz’s adoration for Ann leads her down a wrong path? Or what if the “worship” Liz is participating in never really becomes worship of the Lord but worship just to impress or fit in with man? I think it brings up questions we should really ask ourselves about why we are christians. Are you a christian at Harding because everyone else here is? Are you a christian because you’re parents are?

Do you REALLY know what you believe? Or are you just following those around you?