if you can read this, you're literate

something totally awemazing/freaky/thought provoking happened last night at spent...

just as a recap, spent is once a month at riverside. it's worship in place of a dude speaking. and i love it.

josh (lead singer/our wedding photographer) was up there talking inbetween songs (i always love the things he has to say. sometimes i want to ask him if he really thinks he should be a photographer b/c he sounds more like a rob bell), and he prayed that God sends fire to cleanse us of the impurities in our lives. and i thought to myself, "i bet they sing united's 'fire fall down.'"
AND THEY DID!

and those words finally made more sense to me. i always thought of those lyrics in the negative connotation "fire and brimstone." but finally they had a positive connotation. the fire that falls down is a metaphor for being forgiven. and changed.

then a few minutes later, sarah looked at me and said, "what exactly do those words mean? fire fall down? i don't want to get burned!" or something like that... i might have added that "i don't want to get burned" part...

so i told her what had just made sense to me and it made more sense to her.

then another few minutes goes by and
tim schraeder gets up on stage. he got up there and said something along the lines of, "we sing this song, and some of you might not know what they mean." and he proceeded to tell us the story of pentecost. how everyone was changed by an experience they had after jesus was crucified. all these people were doing was praying and God showed up. how would you react if all of a sudden you could see God?

so immediately i had to go up to the alter and tell tim what just happened. i stayed there the rest of the night.

afterwards, i was talking to confession's pastor, jr dakin, and told him the story. he told me that tim had felt like God was pushing him to get on stage and tell us that. but tim prayed back to God, "if jr comes over and stands next to me, i'll go up there and say that." i think it was right then that jr chose to walk over to tim and put a hand on his shoulder.

tim told jr, "i think i got something here," and jr said, "get up there."

all this after sarah and i were just talking about how we don't really believe people when they say, "i heard God's voice. he TALKED TO ME!"

well, last night, i didn't hear God's voice. but i did hear God speak through tim. and i'm not counting it as a coincidence. i'm choosing to believe that God communicates with us whether we believe it or not.

Posted by erichapman on Monday, October 30, 2006 at 10:33 AM | Permalink