A Sound Is Rising

As I write this article, the election of the next President of the United States hangs in the balance.   The Father of Lights and the King of the Universe does not.   No matter how this election turns out, half our country will be bitterly disappointed and the narrative for those disgruntled, fearful ones will begin of how horrible the next four years and beyond will be. Are you going to buy into that narrative or believe in a superior King and His Kingdom? Honestly, you do have a choice.   The enemy is doing his best to lure us into finding any reason to divide and to see another human being as less than how God sees them. Don’t nibble on this and certainly don’t bite!   We have a choice daily, not just every four years, to find our hope and peace in Jesus alone. Not Jesus and the president any one of us thought in our very limited understanding was going to be our hope for the next four years. Not Jesus and anything else in this world’s system. Just Jesus.   In pondering this, I remembered a scene from the Christmas cartoon many of us grew up with, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” I’m sure you know the story well. After stealing all of the Whos’ Christmas presents, decorations and food, the Grinch couldn’t wait to hear their sad despairing “boo hoo” voices. But he never heard them! No matter what earthly riches were stolen, no matter how their rights may have been violated, the Whos down in Whoville did not take on a victim spirit or plan a way of revenge. They simply gathered as a family, a community who had love for one another, and they worshipped!   --The Grinch did hear a sound rising over the snow. It started in low. Then it started to grow.--   They worshipped with sincere joy. The kind that comes from something deep within that can’t be taken away. You may be thinking, I don’t remember them worshipping. Weren’t they singing something like “Fahoo fores, dahoo dores”?  The point is, the words themselves weren’t the essence of their worship. Their worship in that moment was to cling to joy, to hold fast to the hope within, and to love each other deeply no matter what. Holding hands in a circle, seeing the light within each other, nothing could be stolen from them!    This is who we are together in Christ and this is our moment to worship in the way we love each other and hold onto hope. This is what the world will take notice of!   This Saturday, we are going to gather to worship. And it won’t necessarily be about the lyrics we sing, though they will be significant. The essence of our true worship will spring from the very Spirit of Jesus within us rising up in this moment with hope and joy because we live in an unshakable kingdom and we trust in our very dear Father.    We carry the heart and sound of our good, good Father and that sound is rising up from within and growing! Love, Pastor Brent Lokker