Worship in the Bathroom

Madison, our daughter, loves music. When she's in the car with me, she is in control of the radio. And she enjoys singing - no matter where she is and no matter who is listening. One of her favorite songs is Sweet, Sweet Sound by Sarah Reeves. Madison sings it almost continuously.

Some time ago, Madison decided she needed to use the restroom on the way out of church. So she took her mom with her. She danced through the lobby of the church singing softly to herself, “Hear the song of my life. Let it be a sweet, sweet sound!” (That’s my prayer for her too, by the way!) As she entered the bathroom, the acoustics were more than she could handle. She broke out in complete, uninhibited “worship” at the top of her lungs – “I raise this anthem high! Let it be a sweet, sweet sound!” Fortunately, Madison, Sarah, and Jesus were the only attendees of the worship service in the bathroom.

Thinking about Madison's worship experience challenged me to evaluate my worship – Am I able to worship with abandon like my daughter? Are you? Now, I’m going to look for a bathroom!

When You Need To Hit Restart...

My parents were in town for a few days this past week. I've been sharing my blogging experience with my dad. I told him that I agree with a friend of mine who said recently, "I've found blogging to be an essential spiritual discipline for me. While I hope it encourages others, I continue do it because of the personal accountability it provides." The same has been true for me. While it does require work and critical thinking, I found that the time is well-spent.

Because he has been involved in ministry and organizational leadership for more than 30 years, I've been encouraging my dad to begin a blog. While we were discussing blogging yesterday, my sister was sitting nearby lamenting the fact that she was going to have to shut down her computer and lose everything that she had been working on for the last hour.

Immediately, I told my dad, There you go. Your first blog topic - When You Need To Hit Restart. (He obviously didn't start his blog yesterday so I stole the idea - Sorry Dad!) He pontificated for several minutes about how each day offers new opportunities to restart.

With most people, we get more than forgiveness - we get the chance to push start over - a clean slate!

So, whenever you need to, go ahead, give it a try - hit restart. Don't worry about what you might have lost - there are worse things. Be thankful that you can start over.