La La La La!
I know it's good to tell stories in chronological order, but I don't feel like it always. In the Spirit there is really is no time or distance, is there, so no matter how I tell the story of Passion Atlanta from my point of view, I hope all you hear is GOD GOD GOD. Backwards and forwards, end to beginning.
It's Saturday afternoon and I am walking around the arena, in a break between sessions. Up until this moment, I have had all joy, that joy in taking back what the enemy has stolen. But grief, like the silent shadow it can be, comes into my heart as I walk alone down a hallway and I'm wanting to be alone with God. To be alone, really alone in a crowd of 10,000 is not easy and I had found earlier an outside deck on the second floor that is perfect for this. A place where employees go on break, a small place called "the rescue area." I watch the sky and look for rain, comforted that God is sending it on and off this weekend, like love from His hand.
As I sit outside debating who to call or to text, I realize I need to just stop. That God wants to empty me of the grief I have been carrying and pushing back over the week of preparing to be here in Atlanta. With all that's happening with my family and church and city, it's not a sorrow that cries itself out in one sitting and it sometimes hits with the force of a gale wind. The kind of wind that takes your breath away and you just say, please God, you know I can't. As I put my head down not to cry but just to be silent before God and know Him, I hear in the silence a familiar voice.
It's David Crowder. And his voice is coming from inside the arena. He has to be practicing pretty loud, big surprise, for me to even hear him where I am. He's singing "Never Let Go". All I want to do is let go.
I am propelled to be in there. Not unlike the students rushing to their seats at the beginning of each session, I just want to be with God, in there. Maybe I'm crying for all those who can't this weekend. But I know I could care less what anyone in this building thinks of me but God. I want to be somewhere LOUD where HE is, where my sorrow will be drowned out by the voice of someone else who knows the LOVE and the PAIN of our Savior.
I'm really not thinking all this out though, I just know this grief is going to spill out of me like a river and it's all I can do to lean forward in the first seat I see, to put my head down and let go. I couldn't stop if I wanted to. To get to this regional, to actually be here interceding has been the hardest personally for me of all of them. I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but I'm only here because of the LOVE and POWER and TENACITY of our Savior. I know it.
As the band finishes the song and begins playing something that must have been birthed in the eighties or should have been, I feel the wave subside. I feel stronger for it. That is Jesus Christ all the way. The tall beloved somewhat afro-ed one on stage is switching gears.
LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!
There is something about when David Crowder sings this that snaps me out of my grief, and back into war mode. I know I'm not alone in this at all. This is a simple refrain the devil can't stand. I like it very much. This is the song the warring angels turn their heads to hear and come running, or flying, however they travel - because they know something good is coming.
And it is.
When clouds veil sun and disaster comes
It's Saturday afternoon and I am walking around the arena, in a break between sessions. Up until this moment, I have had all joy, that joy in taking back what the enemy has stolen. But grief, like the silent shadow it can be, comes into my heart as I walk alone down a hallway and I'm wanting to be alone with God. To be alone, really alone in a crowd of 10,000 is not easy and I had found earlier an outside deck on the second floor that is perfect for this. A place where employees go on break, a small place called "the rescue area." I watch the sky and look for rain, comforted that God is sending it on and off this weekend, like love from His hand.
As I sit outside debating who to call or to text, I realize I need to just stop. That God wants to empty me of the grief I have been carrying and pushing back over the week of preparing to be here in Atlanta. With all that's happening with my family and church and city, it's not a sorrow that cries itself out in one sitting and it sometimes hits with the force of a gale wind. The kind of wind that takes your breath away and you just say, please God, you know I can't. As I put my head down not to cry but just to be silent before God and know Him, I hear in the silence a familiar voice.
It's David Crowder. And his voice is coming from inside the arena. He has to be practicing pretty loud, big surprise, for me to even hear him where I am. He's singing "Never Let Go". All I want to do is let go.
I am propelled to be in there. Not unlike the students rushing to their seats at the beginning of each session, I just want to be with God, in there. Maybe I'm crying for all those who can't this weekend. But I know I could care less what anyone in this building thinks of me but God. I want to be somewhere LOUD where HE is, where my sorrow will be drowned out by the voice of someone else who knows the LOVE and the PAIN of our Savior.
I'm really not thinking all this out though, I just know this grief is going to spill out of me like a river and it's all I can do to lean forward in the first seat I see, to put my head down and let go. I couldn't stop if I wanted to. To get to this regional, to actually be here interceding has been the hardest personally for me of all of them. I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but I'm only here because of the LOVE and POWER and TENACITY of our Savior. I know it.
As the band finishes the song and begins playing something that must have been birthed in the eighties or should have been, I feel the wave subside. I feel stronger for it. That is Jesus Christ all the way. The tall beloved somewhat afro-ed one on stage is switching gears.
LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!
There is something about when David Crowder sings this that snaps me out of my grief, and back into war mode. I know I'm not alone in this at all. This is a simple refrain the devil can't stand. I like it very much. This is the song the warring angels turn their heads to hear and come running, or flying, however they travel - because they know something good is coming.
And it is.
When clouds veil sun and disaster comes
Oh, my soul Oh, my soul
When waters rise And hope takes flight
Oh, my soul Oh, my soul Oh, my soul
Ever faithful, Ever true
You I know
You never let go You never let go You never let go You never let go
When clouds brought rain
And disaster came
Oh, my soul Oh, my soul
When waters rose
And hope had flown
Oh, my soul Oh, my soul Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
Overflows
Oh, what love, oh, what love
Oh, my soul
Fills with hope
Perfect love that never lets go
Oh, what love, oh what love Oh, what love, oh what love
In joy and pain
In sun and rain
You’re the same
Oh, You never let go
David Crowder, Never Let Go