“Just when my hallelujah was tired, you gave me a new song”
There’s something about Sunday morning worship after a hard week. Especially when the song goes straight to your heart the second the music starts. The words wash over you. The whole congregation is singing at the top of their lungs and raising their hands. The presence of God is so strong that you can barely even sing, because His love is so overwhelming and consuming. It feels like they picked the songs just for you. Those Sundays are my favorite.
Getting up for church every Sunday morning is hard. Sleep is a precious gift in college. Going to church means sacrificing sleep. (Yes, going to bed earlier would solve that problem, but let’s be realistic here.) Sometimes it’s not even that I would sleep through church, but I don’t want to deal with getting up and dressed and dealing with people.
I’ve found that God intervenes on those days when I don’t want to deal with the effort of going to church. And those are the Sundays I’m happiest that I went. The Saturdays that I have gone to bed thinking that I might not go to church tomorrow, I always end up waking up early enough to easily make it to church. And I’ll be wide awake, even if I only get a few hours of sleep.
I had one of those Sundays this past week. I ended up going to my friend’s church with her. It was a unique Sunday because the music lasted longer than normal and they didn’t have a traditional sermon. But I’m so glad it ended up that way. I didn’t need to hear another sermon, and God knew that. Instead, He came to me through the music.
The music forced me to stop thinking and breathe. I could hear everyone else singing. I saw them worshipping. But I felt like I was alone with God. I gave up all pretenses of having it together, and went to God exhausted and broken. His peace washed over me through the music.