The Service

I went to church yesterday, the first time in a very long time. I went with a hope in my heart that I would once again find the joy I used to find in the house of the Lord but as I sat there I was plagued with the very thoughts that had spawned my initial boycott of the meeting of the saints.

I saw my fellow students moved by the service, lose all inhibitions and allow the spirit of the lord to fill them. They shouted and they prayed, they danced and they sang and seemed to be genuinely experiencing something that was out of this world and there I sat feeling nothing.

The man of God climbed up to the pulpit and started to preach, as he spoke our eyes met and I thought to myself, this is the moment, now I will finally have the connection with the Lord that I seek and then the Man of God looked away without so much a a hitch in his litany to indicate that the lord had just informed him of my purpose in life.

As disappointment overwhelmed me I realised something remarkable, going to church was not about me and how the lord could use my presence as an opportunity to connect with me, rather it was supposed to be about me using it as an opportunity to connect with God, I was to seek Him not wait for Him to realise how special I was and exalt me; I was to exalt Him. I had to take the opportunity given me to be of service to Him then maybe I would finally find the connection I sought with my saviour and rediscover the joy I had in His presence as a child, finally I would not feel so lost and forsaken.