I had a good albeit brief conversation with a new friend and member of the worship team this morning about the comercialization of worship. It started with a magazine ad in which a popular worship leader was endorsing a particular product. Neither of us were crazy about the idea of worship leaders cashing in like that. Then tonight I came across a song by John Foreman, called Instead of a Show. It’s based out of Isaiah 1:11-17. Here’s a YouTube Video of it, and the lyrics.
I hate all your show and pretense
The hypocrisy of your praise
The hypocrisy of your festivals
I hate all your show
Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stomp on my ears when you’re singing ‘em
I hate all your showInstead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a showYour eyes are closed when you’re praying
You sing right along with the band
You shine up your shoes for services
There’s blood on your hands
You turned your back on the homeless
And the ones that don’t fit in your plan
Quit playing religion games
There’s blood on your handsInstead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your showLet’s argue this out
If your sins are blood red
Let’s argue this out
You’ll be one of the clouds
Let’s argue this out
Quit fooling around
Give love to the ones who can’t love at all
Give hope to the ones who got no hope at all
Stand up for the ones who can’t stand at all, all
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your showInstead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
Now popular worship leaders aren’t the only one who are guilty of making worship about something other than God. We can all do it. I’m always trying to be aware that my worship is the same whether I’m at home, in my car, standing in the congregation or on the stage. I want my worship to be about God.
Teeth drama has resolved itself. My last trip to the doctor was on Monday, and I am so glad that is over with. Still healing up a bit, but doing well, and pain free.
I’m off to Phoenix this afternoon to visit the fam. JJ and Erin headed down yesterday, and we are going to have a great time in the 90 degree weather.
We (by we I mean the girls - the boys will be watching football) are making a trip to IKEA tomorrow… I love that place!
We will also likely eat at my parents brunchery a lot. The running joke when we go to visit is betting on how many times we will eat there. I’m going to be there for 5 days, and I’m guessing we will make at least 4 trips, if not 5 to the brunchery. But it’s wonderful! I love it. They have the best biscuits EVER! Not to mention all of the other yummy stuff they have on the menu.
Should be fun!
It’s not about how deep you are, it’s about how much you are digging.
I went to lunch with a good friend a while back (pre-teeth-drama), and as we were talking she said something along the lines of what I wrote above. I thought it was a very good thought. It’s so easy to get caught up in the I’m more spiritual, grounded, whatever game, and it was nice to be reminded that no matter how far a long I am, or anyone is, what matters is if we are digging, are we still growing/learning/stretching ourselves. If we aren’t, that’s the real problem, not how far we’ve gotten.
Just thought I’d share it with you.
Sorry to talk so much about my teeth… I certainly won’t be offended if you skip this post. :) But I thought I’d give you guys an update if you want it.
I thought things were going pretty well and routine in the recovery process. I wasn’t able to go to work on Monday, and that was pretty discouraging, as I had planned to. I was able to get off the prescription pain meds on Monday, and survive on ibuprofen alone, and then went to work on Tuesday. So far so good. The Ibuprofen wasn’t taking care of everything, but it was totally manageable, until about Wednesday afternoon.
On Wednesday afternoon I started feeling a lot of pressure in my teeth!? It felt a whole lot like having a head cold in my teeth, and jaw. Not really painful, but definitely uncomfortable. I left work a little early that day, and by 5pm - hours away from being able to take more ibuprofen, the whole right side of my head hurt. All of my teeth on that side hurt, up into my temple, my ear, and around the back of my head. I called some family to compare experiences, and really just complain. My mom told me to just go ahead and take more ibuprofen, it wasn’t going to kill me. So I did, and then ended up having take 2 of the prescription pain pills before I could sleep that night.
I called my dr first thing the next morning. They told me that I really shouldn’t still be in pain, and to go ahead and come in… Ultimately they ended up telling me that, good news - I didn’t have an entirely dry socket (which is really a weird term used to say you don’t have a clot anymore), but bad news, the clot had deteriorated some, and wasn’t really doing the job it should be of protecting that nerve, leaving it in some way shape or form exposed - which is the reason I was having the radiating pain.
The solution is to have it packed with this medicated stuff, which is not a fun experience (remember my fear of teeth), but is more fun than being in that kind of pain, so I let them do it. It worked quite well, until I had some issues with it that afternoon, and had to go back in to have it redone. (BTW, my dr and his staff are awesome - he stayed after the office was closed and waited for me to get there!)
They had me come back in on Friday to do it again. I’ll go back on Monday, and on Tuesday… (this is like my worst nightmare having to go to the teeth dr and let them poke around where my tooth should be every day! But again, better than the pain, so I’m putting up with it.) Their office is closed on Wednesday, so I’ll get a day off. On Thursday I’ll go in, and we’ll do a trial run with no medicated packing. If all goes well, I’m done. If not, I have to go back in on Friday before I leave for Phoenix where they will put something in that will last more than a day or so, and then start up again when I return from Phoenix.
So that’s that. Not any fun, but I am starting to resume a semi-normal life. I can chew soft things. Hurray! And I can proceed with all of my normal activites - I had just been managing to go to work, although I do carry around my pain pills still, just in case. I actually went to Jose Pepper’s ( a great little mexican place in town) with my brother’s family last night. Mind you I did order off of the kids menu, a bean burrito - which I only ate half of, but it came with applesauce and cottage cheese, and I’m still pretty excited about foods that don’t require any chewing.
Any prayers are still very much appreciated. You can bet I will celebrate the day I don’t have to go back to the oral surgeon again. :) I can’t wait.
I had mentioned that I did not care for having to be dependent on other people during this whole having my wisdom teeth out procedure. (I prefer to not call it surgery, although truthfully that’s what it was - it just sounds too dramatic) Anyway, back to the purpose of this post…
I was so overwhelmingly blessed by the people that helped me out afterwards. Everyone went above and beyond, and I was so blessed and felt so loved. They were truly the church to me, and expressing God’s love in such a pure way. So here are the things that I was reminded first-hand about how God loves through the experience.
God loves sacrificially. Everyone that came to stay with me, made some sort of sacrifice to be there, if nothing else their time, but certainly other things as well. A few examples would be, my worship pastor’s wife, who on her husbands day off when she could have been spending time with him, came to spend time with me, leaving her hubby at home with the kids. My mother who, does not normally rise before 10am in the morning, stayed with me over night, and was up at 8am, making me Malt-o-Meal because I felt sick from not having eaten anything with my pain pill that I took at 5am.
God wants to meet our needs and care for us. Everyone that helped out, was not just willing to help, they genuinely wanted to. No one was there out of obligation. In fact I have one very close friend, Melissa, who despite the fact that she just had her first baby a week before, was sure she’d be mobile enough to come stay with me on Friday afternoon. I didn’t end up needing her to, as other’s were available, but she was determined to make sure I was taken care of, and I felt very loved by her desire to do so.
God wants to give us the best. I had a few friends who decided to bring me some soft food, to make sure I would have things that I could eat. Now they didn’t just go to the store, and buy whatever was easiest. One of them called me from the store to ask what my favorite kind of soup was. She didn’t want to just get me soup, she wanted it to be my favorite. Another friend showed up with ice cream, yougurt and a few other goodies like the bananas and chocolate syrup. And it wasn’t the generic stuff, it was Bryers Vanilla Bean ice cream, and white chocolate strawberry yoplait yougurt. She got me the good stuff.
I’m overwhelmed at how God loves us, and that he’d put real people in our lives to show us in a tangible way his love. So thank you so much for being Christ to me this past weekend!