Invitation: Come to me on the mountain

But God’s glory is still like a consuming fire

Exodus 33:20 [God speaking to Moses] You may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live.

Exodus 24:1-18 Then the Lord instructed Moses: “Come up here to me and bring along … Israel’s elders. All of you must worship at a distance. Only Moses is allowed to come near to the Lord. … Then Moses and the elders climbed up the mountain. There they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there seemed to be a surface of brilliant blue lapis lazuli, as clear as the sky itself. And though these nobles of Israel gazed upon God, he did not destroy them. In fact, they ate a covenant meal, eating and drinking in his presence. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain. … Then Moses climbed up the mountain and the cloud covered it. And the glory of the Lord settled down on Mount Sinai … To the Israelites at the foot of the mountain, the glory of the Lord appeared at the summit like a consuming fire.

Hebrews 4:16; 12:28-29 Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. … Let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a consuming fire.

“I (Derry) walked from the garden back to the inn deep in thought, trailing Desta and [twelve-year-old] Jesus whose conversation I couldn’t hear … ‘Son has all the power in the universe’ [Derry thought] … ‘Even as a human. He can just lift his little finger and—’ At that moment, Jesus turned around and stood waiting for me to catch up to him. I caught his glance and threw myself to the ground before him in worship. Could people not see that this—this twelve-year-old boy—was the King of kings and Lord of lords, eternally one with Father and Spirit, his human body disguising magnificence beyond imagination?

“I trembled so much that the boy Jesus, two feet shorter than me, had to steady me as he pulled me up. ‘I don’t want to attract attention,’ he whispered, nudging me to walk between him and Desta. My body tingled as his touch strengthened me.” Three-in-One, page 73

Writing Three-in-One confronted me with how casually and informally I treat God.How I take for granted the access to him Jesus provided for us, eternally codified in the top-to-bottom tearing of the four-inch-thick* curtain shielding God’s glory in the Most Holy Place of the Temple the moment Jesus died. Derry lives in Heaven. One accidental glimpse of God’s glory was enough to blind him in chapter 1. Through his puzzled eyes, the mystery of Incarnation became viscerally overwhelming to me.

The wonder of Exodus 24 is the exception God made this one time, that people could see him and live. Isaiah also experienced this wonder and was overcome by it (Isaiah 6:5).

And God has not changed: His glory still blindingly bright; his greatness unfathomable to us. It’s only because Son made himself small enough to fit within a human body that we can see God and live.

So when I hear his invitation to come to him on the mountain, I now climb with awe and reverence and a powerful desire simply to worship. My small concerns fade in the glory of his Presence.

Fire in My Heart, Timeless Hebrew Tunes

Invitation: Come, I will give you rest

But God welcomes our burdens

Matthew 11:28-30 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

We thought our orchid had reached its end. But look how it surprised us! It’s been blooming for weeks!

These precious words are so familiar that I’m tempted to let them flow past me without in fact responding to Jesus’ invitation. But my husband is taking these verses seriously, so I’m starting to ask questions of the text. You’ll probably have your own questions.

Is it really possible to find rest for my soul?

How on earth can I exchange my weariness and my heavy burdens for his light one?

Am I capable of learning humility and gentleness?

How can life in this hurting, broken world be “easy to bear”?

Did you notice that all these questions are me-centered? That’s because I skip right over Jesus’s invitation!

When I go back to what matters—Jesus saying, “Come to me … I will give you rest … Take my yoke … Let me teach you …” the answers to my questions are obvious. I can’t do these things on my own. But I don’t have to. What I need to do is lay my burdens at his feet. Place my fears, anxieties, frustrations, confusion in his hands. Wait on him to give me his peace and rest.

This requires of me humility and the gentleness that comes from slowing down enough to reveal and name and submit the jumble and woundedness of my soul to him.

I can’t bear the weight and grief of the world. But he can. And he can show me the tiny little piece of it that he gives me to share with him. And the strength for that tiny little piece.

Aren’t you in awe of the wisdom and strength and patience he has?

“Come, All Who Are Weary,” Porter’s Gate

Lyrics:

1.Come, all who are weary, I will give you rest.

Come, all who are striving, lean upon my breast;

For my yoke is easy and my burden light.

O come, all who are weary, come.

2.Come, all who are wounded, crying out “How long?”

Come, all who are waiting for the break of dawn.

Darkness will not hide me forever from your sight.

O come, all who are wounded, come.

3.Come, all who are weeping, all whose hope is gone.

Come, all who are silent, all who’ve lost their song.

Your every tear is numbered, your every sorrow known.

O come, all who are weeping, come.

Tag: O come, all who are weary, wounded, and weeping.

All of God’s children, come.

Invitations: Call to me and I will answer

But God slows us down

Jeremiah 33:3 The Message This is what the Lord says, “Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.”

Lamentations 3:26 The MessageIt’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God.

Dave and I only noticed this snake on a recent walk because we slowed down our normal pace to deliberately notice what was around us in the woods. See the bulge a few inches down from his head? He (she?) must have recently eaten.

I’m resonating in this season of my life with God’s invitations to us as recorded in Scripture. Like this one, so many of them contain a promise: “I will answer.”

We can absolutely count on the Lord’s promises! Yet Jeremiah reminds us that God’s timetable may not be ours, and that can feel very frustrating. Our whole culture is oriented toward instant gratification. If my daughter doesn’t respond to a text within a couple of hours, I start wondering whether something is wrong. If I have to wait ten minutes to get through a construction zone, it throws off my whole carefully calibrated schedule. If Prime can’t deliver what I want by tomorrow, I complain.

God’s purposes, though, can’t be accomplished instantaneously. What he most wants is to form us into people of integrity and nobility of character. Our convenience, comfort, pleasures, and preferences—mmm, not so much.

Sometimes that means having to wait. That’s hard for us. We’re like fussy, impatient, self-centered children. Sometimes it means a reshaping of what we think we want and think we need. Because God wants us to grow up, to mature. He wants us to grow in patience and all the other lovely fruit of the Spirit.

God’s work can be slow. It challenges all our impulses to have what we want when we want it. Right now.

Yet God truly loves us and promises good to us. The NIV translates Lamentations 3:25-26 like this: The Lord is good to those who depend on him … so it is good to wait quietly for the Lord.

What are you waiting for? Can you surrender today to the Lord’s loving wisdom, to his invitation to believe the promise he will answer, even when it takes more time and looks different from what you ask for from your limited perspective?

I’m asking myself these questions today.

Slow Me Down, Porter’s Gate

Sing over me

Another look at Ephesians 5:18-19, with Kevin Antlitz

Ephesians 5:18-19 Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your heart.

Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.

Life has been crazy. I simply haven’t kept up with everything, including this blog. The last time I posted was April 29, with a poem written by our daughter Rachel after the shocking death of our son’s best friend, Silas. Rachel’s poem witnesses our uneasy relationship with time, a struggle not one of us can escape.

Today’s post will be a bit longer than usual for me, but I hope you’ll take a couple of extra minutes to read it all.

Marsha’s roses

Ironically, traveling yesterday from Pittsburgh to Meridian, Idaho has given me a sort of reprieve—a chance to walk into a slower rhythm, a slow dance with time, if you will. I came to visit my sister Marsha, who lives in a different reality than I do. Delightfully, Alzheimer’s has not robbed her of music and praise. She seldom speaks. But she often sings! Her lovely voice captures a range of emotions, often acknowledging the tender care offered by her husband Vance. “He does all the things, alleluia!” she sings, gazing lovingly at him.

Yesterday Marsha surprised me by singing over me. I didn’t expect her to recognize me. But at one point she looked at me and sang, “My mother and my sister, alleluia!” Somehow, she seems to know I’m her sister and blessed me with her love.

It’s such a precious thing to witness Marsha’s repeated alleluias. There is so much she can no longer do or communicate. Yet her soul still resonates in harmony with her Lord.

On Pentecost Sunday, our church bid farewell to our assistant pastor, Kevin Antlitz, and his family. He has accepted an invitation to be senior pastor at a church in Atlanta. I will especially miss his thoughtful sermons.

I just did a search of this blog and discovered that I have recommended one of Kevin’s sermons six times. So today is number seven. You can listen here to “Why We Sing,” Kevin’s unusual discussion of the importance of singing together in praise to the Lord.

Kevin notes three reasons why Paul tells us to sing:

It’s evidence of the Holy Spirit active in our lives, drawing us into praise. The Spirit fills us with song. When we’re filled with the Spirit, love overflows. “Only the lover sings” (St. Augustine). A Christian is someone who sings.
Singing knits our hearts together into one heart and mind and soul.
Singing gives us an opportunity to bless and encourage and teach each other.

Sometimes we lose our voice, whether in grief, discouragement, or shame. Sometimes we need others to sing over us, helping restore our faith, our hope, and our love.

As Marsha is doing for me.

I invite you to let Sing Over Me (The Porter’s Gate) touch your soul:

1.When I am lost inside my mind, Sing me the hope I cannot find

When my despair has left me blind, Sing me the tune I’ve left behind.

[Chorus] Will you sing over me? Will you sing over me?

Sing of the goodness I cannot see. Will you sing over me?

2. When all the grief pours through my hands, When I’ve forgotten who I am

I can’t feel anything but shame, Sing out and give me back my name.

[Bridge] When I sink down beneath the fear, The weight is more than I can bear

Keep singing though I cannot hear. Someday I’ll sing for you, I swear.

[Chorus] Will you sing over me? Will you sing over me?

Sing of the goodness I cannot see. Will you sing over me?

Live generously

But God honors those with generous hearts

Psalm 112:4, 6, 9 Light shines in the darkness for the godly. They are generous, compassionate, and righteous. … Those who are righteous will be long remembered. … They share freely and give generously to those in need. Their good deeds will be remembered forever. They will have influence and honor.

I last posted on March 24 and 25, the latter an invitation to write a short story inspired by a photograph. If you’re interested in this, the deadline is coming up soon!

I didn’t anticipate this month-long break from writing blogs. These weeks have been intense. If I can add to Allen Saunders’ quote (popularized by John Lennon), “Life and death are what happen to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

During Holy Week, while we remembered Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for us, our son’s best friend, Silas, suddenly died of a massive heart attack, leaving his wife and kids 6 and 3. As we joined a mosaic of people crowded into a large church and overflow room in DC a week later to honor Silas, the theme “Live generously” captured his life perfectly.

We arrived home from DC just a few hours before heading to the Pittsburgh airport in the wee hours of April 13 for a flight to Colorado Springs. While engaged with mission teammates there we received the shocking news that our beloved, vivacious niece Marie had suddenly died, also of a heart attack. How can it be true that she is gone from us?

While looking through my photos of Marie, I found this one, with our daughter Karis in 2011. This is a special photo in part because Karis hated the way she looked at that time, her “chipmunk cheeks” a consequence of high steroids required to keep her from rejecting her second intestinal transplant. She rarely allowed people to take photos of her. But when her wonderful cousin Marie visited, she made an exception. Marie came to Pittsburgh from San Diego to care for Karis for a week while Dave and I traveled, an example of her generous nature.

Marie with her grandmother Margaret Daly. I posted a blog written by Margaret a few years ago. She helped translate the Bible into two languages. Marie loved butterflies. She grew up in Guatemala and called herself “Mariposa,” butterfly in Spanish.

A few hours after we arrived back home in the middle of the night Friday, our friend Lori (related to us by marriage) went Home. And at the same time Saturday, we learned that another person precious to us has stage 3 or 4 cancer. And now the mother of a dear friend is “actively dying.” I keep checking my phone for updates about her.

It’s a lot to grapple with all at once. Grief drains a lot of energy.

Silas, Marie, and Lori lived generously. Each of them left a legacy of love that won’t be forgotten.

Influenced by my own book, Three-in-One: The Mysterious Friendship of Derry and Benny, I’ve been imagining Karis greeting each of these dear ones and showing them the ropes in Heaven. I imagine the party they’re having: Silas, Marie, and Karis are all party people. I imagine Silas’s reunion with his father, who died when Silas was 17. I imagine Lori’s joy in her reunion with her daughter and husband, who went before her. I imagine Marie delighting in her Aunt Bev and in her grandmother Margaret and grandfather John.

And most of all, I imagine each of them thrilled to be with Jesus, discovering with him the grand mysteries of true Life.

Our grief is profound. It’s painful. And it’s temporary.

Joy, though, is eternal.

I think and dream about Karis, and Silas, and Marie, and Lori, and Bill, and Bev, and Margaret, and John, and other dear ones, asking: How can I honor their example by living more generously myself?

Paul’s Songs: In Community

But God wants us to worship with understanding

1 Corinthians 14:15-17 I will sing in the Spirit, and I will also sing in words I understand. For if you [a rare singular] praise God only in the Spirit, how can those who don’t understand you praise God along with you? How can they join you in giving thanks when they don’t understand what you are saying? You will be giving thanks very well, but it won’t strengthen the people who hear you.

While writing Three-in-One: The Mysterious Friendship of Derry and Benny, I thought a lot about worship in Heaven. Will the gathered believers from around the world and through all human history each worship in their own language? Will it be like Pentecost in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus’ followers to understand and speak languages they had never learned? Will everyone there speak the same language?

If you read Three-in-One,you’ll see how handled these questions for the sake of the story. But of course, I don’t know for sure. As I say in my letter to parents prior to the story, I can’t wait to find out what Heaven is really like.

Here on Earth, Paul thought it important that communities of believers be able to sing together, understanding the words they sang, to encourage and strengthen each other’s faith. I’ve described before my experience of worship in Ghana, where the people who gathered for a conference on discipleship spoke dozens of languages. The worship leader wisely chose songs that had been translated into all these different tongues—and I knew them as well, in English, Spanish, and Portuguese! While not understanding a word of what the people around me sang, we praised God with the same lyrics. The music bound us together in our love for the Lord—a taste of Heaven!

Ghanaian Joy Shutterstock: Sura Nualpradid

The Spirit guides and fills our worship. And understanding each other’s worship enfolds us in a crescendo of praise to our compassionate, all-powerful, all-knowing, incomparable God.

When I discovered Darlene Zschech’s wonderful song Shout to the Lord (All the Earth) sung by Darlene with Ana Paula Valadão, Ingrid Rosario in my three languages, I wept at its beauty.

Paul’s Songs: Steve’s Story – Fear or Confidence? By pastor and artist Steve Easterwood, Kirksville, MO

But God makes you strong March 4, 2026

Romans 16:25, 27 Now all glory to God, who is able to make you strong. … All glory to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, forever. Amen.

I met Steve in high school, when we both participated in the youth group at our church. He has a particular prayer burden for Ukraine. Pastor Steve is a gifted artist. See more of his work at SteveEasterwood.com. He invites you to email him at SteveEasterwood@gmail.com.

Above: The Christmas Rose, by Steve Easterwood How many symbols representing Jesus can you see in this painting?

Right: Mary, by Steve Easterwood. What stands out to you?

Here is Steve’s story:

Sometimes people who are not yet believers in Jesus ask me, “What difference does Christ make in your life?” He makes all the difference in the world!

In December 2020, I was having some minor swallowing issues, and after a scope, I was told that I had a seven-inch cancerous tumor wrapped around my esophagus.

We all wonder on those sleepless nights how we’ll respond if the diagnosis is cancer. I was no different. There were nights when I wondered the same thing. That night, as was my practice, I prayed and committed my situation to the Lord. I told Him that my life was in His hands and that I trusted Him, whatever His decision about my fate. With that, I fell asleep.

The next morning, I received a notification from my watch that I had experienced the best night of sleep I’d had in four months! How can that happen the night after you receive a serious cancer diagnosis?

I fell asleep absolutely convinced that my situation would have one of three outcomes:

First, God could heal me. I firmly believe that the God of the Bible still heals today.

Second, Jesus could return and take me home.

Third, I could die and, as the Bible says, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). When someone dies, people say, “He lost his battle to cancer.” But where’s the loss? There are only three outcomes, and each one is a win for me!

That’s how you sleep like a baby after you’ve had a cancer diagnosis. So far, God has chosen option number one. He is still Jehovah-Rapha, God the healer.

Recently, I found out that the five-year survival rate for my type and stage of cancer is 0%. Yet, here I am, still alive today. I believe that God still has a mission for me to accomplish. Until that mission is finished, nothing, including cancer, can take my life. When that mission has been accomplished, nothing can keep me alive for another second.

Until the time when God chooses to take me home, I will put all my energy into taking as many people to heaven with me as possible. I’m 71 years old. There’s a party waiting for me soon in heaven. Until that time, I plan to share God’s message of Good News so that people can be confident about where they will spend eternity. My question to you is this: How would you sleep on a cancer diagnosis? If you have faith in God, you won’t have to fear the outcome, and you can sleep like a baby!

Give Thanks by Don Moen

Paul’s songs: Praise for God’s grace to all people

But God loves harmony

Romans 15:5-11 Live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God … Accept each other just as Christ has accepted you. … Remember that Christ came as a servant to the Jews … He also came so that the Gentiles might give glory to God for his mercies to them. … “Praise him, all you people of the earth” [Psalm 117:1].

My granddaughter Juliana spent 24 hours with me while her mom and sister Liliana visited Valerie and family in São Paulo, Brazil. She loved watching neighborhood deer eat groundcover on our front slope–nine of them this time!

This second week of Lent, I’m thinking about grace. Grace in relationships.

My husband and I usually attend the 9:00 service at our church. I enjoy opportunities to attend the 11:00 service at our church, though, so I can hear the choir sing. This rarely happens at 9:00. The harmony created by skilled musicians combined with enthusiastic worshipers thrills my heart, as I imagine it does the Lord’s.

I have several close friends in the choir. They tell me it’s about more than singing on Sundays. It’s about community, about sharing their lives, praying for and supporting one another. A usually shy friend feels completely comfortable in that group.

Which type of harmony matters more to the Lord? That’s hard to say. Paul implies that harmony of relationship is necessary for true praise (verses 5-6). I think that applies to all of us—families, friends, colleagues, neighbors—not just to those in a formal grouping like a choir.

Pushing this back a step further: to have harmony with other people, I need first to cultivate personal harmony with the Lord. Do you ever experience a song or psalm of praise welling up in your heart at some random time of the day? That happens to me often. I understand it as the Holy Spirit’s invitation to participate in the praise of Heaven, where people and angels never cease to worship the Lord.

This heart-worship matters to me enough that it helps protect me from discord with other people. When that does happen, I’m highly motivated to resolve the tension, because I don’t want my internal praise interrupted just because I’ve been selfish, insensitive, stubborn, critical, or envious.

When I think about how Christ has accepted me, with all my failures and foibles, how can I reject a brother or sister for whom Jesus shed his blood? In the Body of Christ, “us” and “them” must take a back seat to the fact that we’re all sinners saved by grace. Even if we don’t agree about much of anything else.

How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony … For harmony is precious … Harmony is refreshing … There the Lord has pronounced his blessing [Psalm 133].

Psalm 117 in a canon Geneva Academy

Psalm 117 Highway to Zion

Paul’s songs: His mercy is more

But God had patience

Romans 4:7-8 [quoting Psalm 32:1-2] “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”

1 Timothy 1:15-16 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners.

By God’s mercy, joy can become the other side of profound distress.I believe this in my head. In many ways I believe it in my heart as well. But it seems God is calling me today to a deeper experience of this joy.

Karis in 2009 with one of her doctors

Spring, 2009. Overwhelmed. Beyond fatigued. No longer tolerating the unrelenting stress. Teetering on the edge of emotional breakdown.

These words inadequately describe my condition when I made an impulsive decision to get out of Dodge. Or in my case, out of Pittsburgh.

Every other time I left Karis in Pittsburgh, I planned and prepared for weeks. The person (most often my generous sister Jan) who relieved me arrived a week ahead of time to get up to speed with the complexities of Karis care. Complexities that one home health agency after another declared too much for their nurses.

This time, no one could come. Desperate for relief, I patched together a care team of five people who reluctantly agreed to cover a day or two each. I “trained” them for a couple of hours, pointing out pages of written instructions they absolutely must follow. Ignoring my conscience, I got on a plane to Brazil. My home. A place to crash, to be accountable to no one. Precious friends who breathed life and energy back into my parched soul.

The first message came from the hospital. “The paramedics were able to stabilize Karis, but we will keep her here until you return.”

Adrenaline flooded me as I began throwing things back into my suitcase.

The next message was just as cryptic. A telegram from the kind friends who had given us space in their home when we could not afford an apartment: “Come back. Now.”

I went there first. The shouting began when I opened the door to the house. It included phrases like, “If she had died under my roof, I WOULD NEVER FORGIVE YOU! NEVER!” and “You are no longer welcome here.”

A bit at a time, the story emerged. One of the caregivers had given Karis ten times the correct dose of insulin. When the ambulance arrived, her blood sugar was 23.

God was merciful. Karis didn’t die. But this was only one of at least a dozen ways Karis could have died, from mistakes of well-meaning but inadequately prepared and resourced friends.

What on earth had I been thinking? How could I have done what I did, exposing my daughter to such danger—and my friends as well, when Karis’s care at home was deemed too difficult even for trained nurses?

The truth, of course, is that I wasn’t thinking about anything but my own survival. Eventually, with help, I was able to accept God’s forgiveness. My friend’s forgiveness—my friend who had sacrificially opened her home to us—and healing of our broken relationship took quite a bit longer.

This morning, out of the blue, I woke up to the startling question, Have I forgiven myself? Where did that come from? I must have been dreaming about this incident in 2009.

The tears that flooded my eyes bore mute testimony to the challenge in this question.

Yes, God was merciful. Karis did not die from my negligence. Profound mercy.

But finding mercy for myself? That’s … different. I don’t yet know how to get there.

And as I read again Paul declaring himself “the worst of sinners,” I wonder. Was he able to forgive himself?

Four other times in 2009 Karis almost died—not from negligence, but because of the extremity of her medical situation. Each of those times our family gathered from three continents to say goodbye. Each time, we experienced mercy as, beyond hope, God brought Karis back to us.

Today, perhaps, God in mercy invites me to a new level of healing. And of joy.

His Mercy is More Matt Boswell and Matt Papa

Paul’s songs: The Lesson of the Tambourine, by Barbara Alexander, Villers-St-Paul, France

But Jesus receives highest honor

Romans 14:11 [Isaiah 45:23] “As surely as I live,” says the Lord, “every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will confess and give praise to God.”

Philippians 2:9-11 [Isaiah 45:23] God elevated Jesus to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

My friend Barb lives in a small village in northern France. She’s very active in this community. Here’s Barb:

Yesterday morning, as is usual for most every Sunday in my life, I went to church. I long ago noted that drums are the only percussion instrument played during the worship time. So, being a musical person myself, I bring my little tambourine-on-a-stick in my purse each week, and I play it appropriately to add to the spirit of the livelier songs.

Occasionally one of the little kids in church (who know me from being in our home group together) sidles up to me with a hand outstretched toward my tambourine, ready to play it. Yesterday it was little 5-year-old Paul. So I placed his right hand on the wooden stick, tapping his left palm to the beat of the music, as he’s seen me do. My hands remained on top of his hands to make sure he played the instrument correctly.

We were both enjoying the dinging sound of the tambourine and how it added to the joy of the worship songs as I guided his hands. But every now and then Paul would begin his own rhythm and tapping, and I could feel his resistance to my guidance. When this began happening, I tried to gently encourage him. “Relax, Paul,” I’d say. “Let my hands help you do the rhythm.” After these words, he’d ease up and let me guide him, which kept a better rhythm than he made on his own. And we both enjoyed the sound we heard and were pleased with our contribution to the worship time.

In the midst of this experience, the thought occurred to me that it’s just like what God wants to do in my life. It was as if I heard Him saying, “Relax, my daughter – let My hands – My infinite hands – guide yours, let Me make the music you’re trying to make, and let Me send it through your life to those around you.” Wow! What a message!!

And the more I thought on it, the more it struck me how true it is – He’s got His infinite hands on my finite ones, and if I don’t resist Him, He will guide me to fulfill His perfect will for my life – He’ll make His music – the BEST music – in my life for those around me to hear – His words drawing them to Himself. All because I submitted to Him as my Sovereign Guide to help me “play my tambourine.”

I guess it all boils down to submission, doesn’t it? Just like little Paul, when he submitted to the guidance of my adult hands covering his childish ones. My prayer now: “Father, help me to see where I’m resisting You in my life, where I’m not letting You make Your music in and through me. I now submit to Your infinite Lordship. In Jesus’ Powerful, Almighty Name, Amen.”

Praise him with the tambourine and dancing; praise him with strings and flutes! Psalm 150:4