A God With No Boundaries

Do we put God in a box? I think that if we answered that question honestly, we do.  Have you ever prayed for something to happen and then, when it didn't happen in your time, went and did it anyway? 

How many times has the word of God been presented to you in a different way and you stuck your nose up at it? What about when they brought a live band in the sanctuary to accompany the worship instead of the traditional organ and piano? 

This post has been a long time coming.  Back on October 26, Jenn and I did something that made us step out of our comfort zones and actually "let the Lord lead", for lack of a better phrase.  For about 6-7 months, the Lord laid it on my heart to present "Boasting" by Lecrae for a special music.  When I first brought it to Jenn, she was excited, as I was, but also wary, but so was I.  

So as I said months passed and I was still afraid to burst open the box.  However, then I began to think about how awesome it was presenting worship in a different way.  In the back of my mind, though, I pictured droves of people standing and leaving the church I've called home for 27 years, in my flesh, that would kill me.  However, as God does, he chisels the things that hold us down away and inspires us.  

In our Coaches Outreach Bible study this season, we have studied Paul's interactions with Timothy.  When I think of Paul I usually think of how he used athletic metaphors to get his point across.  In the twelfth chapter of Hebrews he says:

                "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off                      everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with preserverance the race marked out for us..." Hebrews 12:1(NIV)

So there it was, something I heard all my life coming back and forth into my mind about doing what God called me to do.  Would there be a reaction? Yup.  Would I feel the satisfaction of knowing I did what God called me to do and it reached people through His power? Yup.

The power of God is an amazing thing.  I started singing at church when I was probably three or four years old, but the first time I ever sang on stage on a Sunday morning I was in seventh grade.  Dad, Mom, and myself sang "At The Cross," and I will never forget it (neither will many of my old choir directors and family members because they still bring it up today).  I stood on stage with my head down, singing straight into the microphone, and shaking like I had a bad cause of the chills.  Through the years I grew and matured into the singer I am now.  My dad sometimes says "the monster" they created.  I couldn't tell you how many songs I've sang between then and now and I could only name a few of them.  However, I can tell you that any song we sang had deep personal meaning to the people singing it.  

"Boasting" was no different. 

"If this life has anything to gain at all I count it loss if I can't hear you, feel you, cause I need you. Can't walk this earth alone" 

"With every breath I take, every heartbeat...every glance, every dance, every note of a song. It's all a gift undeserved that I shouldn't have known...I'm deserving to die I'm just earning your judgement, without the cross there's only condemnation.."

"What's my life if it's not praising you? Another dollar in my bank account of vain pursuit." 

I mean the song has worked my heart ever since the first time I heard it when Lecrae released it. I slowly made up my mind that we had to do it, no matter what it cost we had to sing that song.  

One thing though, rap music from the stage of First Baptist Church.  Would I look like the whitest guy in the world? Would we be considered an abomination? Is Christian rap music reverent and holy alongside hymns and praise choruses?  Is God all things to all people? Or is that just some cliche we grew up with?  Does God stretch across the boundaries of musical genres? Or is He bound up in Amazing Grace and How Great Is Our God? 

So we sang/rapped our song.  We ended up on Instagram and Facebook.  We received many comments about how worshipful it was and how many people enjoyed it.  We were the buzz of the schools on that next Monday.  

Hopefully, no one saw that as anything we did.  That was all God's handiwork.  For example, every time we practiced I would mess up on the last part of the second verse, but that morning, it was all on point! Tell me that wasn't God working through me.  Tell me the fact that kids dropped their color pages and leaned forward, and the middle schoolers and high schoolers I usually see talking through the songs were intently listening along wasn't God working through a rap song in worship! 

All that jabber to say, God doesn't fit in our boxes.  He doesn't fit in our time.  

Did we catch flack? Yes, but not much.  We upset a few folks who were willing enough to tell us, and that's okay.  King David upset Michal, Saul's daughter, as he danced down the street before the Lord.  And as David's reaction was, so ours is:

"David said to Michal, 'It was before the LORD...I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified the this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes." 

So when you see me driving down the street and your hear Trip Lee, Lecrae, Tedashii, Derek Minor, and KB blaring out of my speakers, or if you come to an HMS basketball game and hear the same stuff, know I'm not being unholy, I'm worshipping my BIG GOD!