It is a glorious day! Thank You, Great Creator of the Universe, for Your wonderful gift!
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One of the oddest things triggered a memory for me today on my bus. After asking for a tissue, one of my kindergartners asked to throw it away after using it. What triggered my memory was, when she asked to do so, her little hand raised above the top of the seat, and she waved it in the air.
You may think, “What in the world could a waving used tissue bring to mind?” Well, let me tell you.
I’ve mentioned before that I had a pretty conservative upbringing – no dancing, no movies, no playing cards (ones with diamonds, spades, clubs, and hearts), etc. Today, the word “Pentecostal” brings different thoughts to different people. Back at the turn of the 20th century, when a group of holiness-minded folk pulled away from the Methodist church, the original name they took for themselves was the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene. Some leaned a little heavier in that direction, and within a few years, they pulled away, and those that remained changed their name to the Church of the Nazarene.
The Church of the Nazarene at that time (the early 1900s) embraced what many today would label “emotional” worship experiences that, for me, were still a normal part of worship in the 60s and 70s. The things I’m talking about were when men and women would get “blessed” in a service and pull their hankies out and wave them about. Often, that would be accompanied by shouts of “Praise the Lord!” and “Glory!” Others would “run the aisles”. They would be so full of the Lord’s presence that they would run up and down the church’s aisles (or the tabernacle – the big worship center still at the West Virginia District Campgrounds.)
Now, if you’re thinking that is just a bunch of bologna, just a bunch of trumped-up emotion on the part of the participants, let me set you straight! When you looked into the faces of those hankie-waving, aisle-running, Glory-shouting folk, they were so filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives that they just had to express it! Their faces glowed with the joy of the Lord moving in and through them. Tears of joy would run down their cheeks, with smiles from ear to ear!
It wasn’t a show. It wasn’t something they did because others expected it or deemed it necessary if they were indeed followers of Christ; it was an outward expression of an inward experience!
It was definitely a bit more demonstrative than the lifting of hands common in many worship services today. Still, I am sorry to say that though I am not in the least bit offended by those who expressed their worship in such ways, I have never been inclined to do so.
Lord Jesus, I would pray that at some point in my life, I would be so blessed, so infilled with Your presence, that I would have to let it out some way. I would pray that it would be genuine and that if any were to witness it, they would know that You were at the center of it – the sole reason for its existence! Amen.
O clap your hands, all you people;
Shout to God with the voice of triumph and songs of joy.
For the Lord Most High is to be feared [and worshiped with awe-inspired reverence and obedience];
He is a great King over all the earth. Psalm 47:1-2 AMP
Feb 26th, 2024, Mon, 12:43 pm
