His strength is perfect

I'm sitting in my usual Saturday morning breakfast joint. I relentlessly hit it every Saturday I possibly can. I enjoy coming here because it is another thin place for me. I come at 8am which means I have two hours before I need to start work at S21 sitting with the homeless who will have had another night on the streets, the alcoholics who won't be feeling to good this morning, and the drug addicts who will be anxious to secure their next fix.

I love Saturdays.

But before work I love coming here especially because for those two hours I have coffee and a nice breakfast . I then sit back and use the couple of hours to just engage with God.

This morning I sat back with my coffee, and with earphones in, and blackberry switched on to one of my self selected playlists aptly labelled "intense." intense because it contains some of those gorgeous long chilled anthems that are seriously directed towards the majesty of God.

As I worshiped, I migrated easily into prayer, and into the depths of my love for a one on one with God.

Sounds so lovely and amazing doesn't it?

It is.

But this morning, just as I began to speak to God, I had one of those moments that I guess every Christian that ever lived has from time to time.

A moment that cut through my connection to God like an interference to a wireless network. Those annoying interferences that interrupt your Internet connection?

The moment came in the form of a bout of doubt. Doubt raises questions, and they came with a flourish.

Is anyone up there listening to this? Am I doing this right? Do I really know how to pray and worship God? I speak every week either on platforms or one to ones to lots of people about God, do I actually know what I am doing? Do I actually believe what I am saying is true?

And Right at the moment I was thinking of these things I felt pretty much, well, weak really.

But without knowing it I think maybe these questions formed a genuine prayer?

Just as I was thinking these thoughts, a song started out of the depths of my intense playlist. It was CeCe Winans singing "His strength is perfect."

His strength is perfect?

Yeah, I guess it is.

I moved my prayer on and said to God, "I'm sorry if I am not sure how to pray or indeed if I look deeply into my heart, I'm not sure if I worship you in the right way either."

It sounds so weak doesn't it?

But God being God, as always put a thought straight into my head.

It was this.

"Just be you. Just do what you do. Just love me and then love others."

I picked up a book that I am reading in preparation for my masters dissertation looking at prayer and mission. The book is called Prayer, does it make a difference, by Philip Yancey.

As I opened the page to where I'd left off last time, I began to read.

Amazingly these were the first sentences I read.

I was teaching a class at a church in Chicago, when a young woman raised her hand with a question. I knew she was a shy, conscientious student who attended faithfully but never spoke. The rest of the class seemed surprised as well and listened intently. "I'm not always sincere when I pray," she began. "Sometimes it seems forced, more like a ritual. I'm just repeating words. Does God hear those kinds of prayers? Should I keep going though I have no confidence I'm doing it right?" I let the silence hang in the room for a moment before attempting an answer. "Do you know how quiet it is in here?" I said. "we all sense your honesty. It took courage for you to be vulnerable, and you touched a nerve with others of us in the room. You seem sincere, unlike a salesman, say, who gets paid to give a spiel. We're tuned in, listening, respectful, because you are being authentic. And I imagine it's the same with God. More than anything else, God wants your authentic self."

This was no coincidence this morning. And it resonated with me straight away. And I guess it inspired me this morning to write this blog that maybe will resonate with others.

John 4: 23-24 says something amazingly true.

Yet a time is coming and has now come when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers father seeks. God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

Yeah, I feel today that authenticity, being oneself in front of God, being vulnerable and expressing truly how we are is the basis of worshiping in Spirit and in truth. If we have to put on a show in worship then thats not being truthful is it?

So I guess today being truthful before God, telling him I'm not sure if I'm getting this right, is a great thing in my relationship with God because His Spirit takes the bits of me that aren't sure and moulds them into something good.

He turns weakness into strength.

And His strength is perfect.

His strength is perfect when our strength is gone.
He'll carry us when we can't carry on.
Raised in his power the weak become strong.
His strength is perfect.

So today if you are struggling to pray, to worship, to connect with God?

Just be authentic. Just be you, just bring where you are right now before him.

His strength is perfect.