Have you ever been so surprised and overjoyed at some wonderful thing, that you laughed out loud? Have you ever been so overwhelmed by something that your knees went weak, and you had to sit or risk falling? I experienced both this week, but in what might be considered a controversial place. I went to a prayer meeting.
It began innocently enough. I was leading music for Friday morning worship, and a couple of friends were helping me on piano and bass guitar. After we finished singing, about halfway through the sermon, the bass guitarist--a young man in his late teens--suddenly leaped up and shouted, "STOP! Just stop! I need everyone to pray for me RIGHT NOW!"
You need to know that this is an international, interdenominational church. Organizationally, it is affiliated with the Oklahoma Baptists, but its membership consists of people from many places in the world, and as many different types of churches. Australians, South Africans, Arabs, Germans, Swiss, Americans, Canadians, Chinese, Russians, British, and others. Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Anglican, and who knows what else. In overall operation, this church is pretty much an "average" of several mainstream Protestant denominations. If we err in our worship, we err toward 1 Corinthians 14:40 instead of 2 Samuel 6:14 or all the shouting in the Psalms. To my knowledge, nobody has ever come out of their seat shouting in the middle of a sermon.
Everything stopped, and everyone stared. The young man continued his diatribe, and as best as I could understand, he was simply desperate to draw nearer to God, and he was frustrated by what he perceived as the staid ritual and cold order of the service. He was not antagonistic or hateful at all; he just wanted to feel the presence of God in his life, and I guess he felt trapped by the trappings of the church. Several of us gathered around him, laid our hands on him and prayed. After the service, we gathered in another room and prayed over several more people in the church who came in with deep needs.
It was a wake-up call, and it gave us new eyes to see the needs of our body. We need to bear one another's burdens, hold each other up, pray over one another. We need to worship our Lord, openly, unashamedly, and at times loudly. As a worship leader, I need to do whatever I can to bring the body into the presence of God. No small task, especially when I am typically more comfortable with quiet order than expressive shouting.
That evening, a group met in someone's home to pray over this young man, and to pray about whatever it was that had driven him from his chair. About a dozen people attended, including his parents. Most I knew, others were new to me. I had never been to the house, so a friend talked me in via mobile phone. As we talked, he informed me that other churches in town had experienced similar out-of-the-ordinary occurrences in their services that morning--miraculous healings, that sort of thing. I hardly knew what to expect.
When I walked in (fashionably late, to my chagrin), I found myself in a large candlelit room. Worship music played from the sound system, and everyone was quietly worshiping--standing, sitting, kneeling, as they were most comfortable. Most people were singing, hands raised. Some were quiet, some were speaking in tongues, some would occasionally speak or shout something to God. I picked a spot at the back of the room, strategically located around the corner from the restroom. I wasn't planning on ducking out, but I've been in a few places where I needed an exit. It never hurts to have one, just in case.
I've always been a little nervous about charismatic manifestations, because it seems to me that emotional highs are relatively easy to counterfeit. In my head, I know that the pitfalls of too little emotion are just as dangerous as the pitfalls of too much emotion, but I am more likely to stay on the "safe side" of controlled emotions--which is to say that I am probably out of balance. The Spirit sometimes asks people to do weird things, but not around here, right?
The music was very worshipful, and I closed my eyes, forgot about everyone else--the fact that I was able to do that was evidence enough of the presence of God--and just worshiped Jesus. I sang, raised my hands, and tears began to roll down my face. It had been so long since I had been able to worship, without any concern for where I was or who was around me, to completely focus on Christ and pour out my heart to Him. After probably fifteen or 20 minutes of uninterrupted worship, I had become so overwhelmed that I felt myself getting weak. I tried to remain upright, but I ended up falling to my knees, and finally on my face, in worship, my body too weak to move. It wasn't like a paralysis; I could turn my head and move my arms, but I had neither the strength nor any desire to get up.
People fall face down all the time in the Bible. Jesus did it, the disciples did it, the people did it. Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Balaam, Joshua, David, Ezekiel, Daniel, John, all fell face down before the Lord at one point or another. They were all so overcome with the presence of God that was before them that they hit the dirt. It wasn't an everyday experience, but it happened, it was real, it was powerful. And, I discovered, it still happens today. Some people call it being "slain in the Spirit." I don't particularly care for that term, because I think it is abused, and it is too flippant a description of what is actually happening. I prefer to simply refer to it in Biblical terms: falling face down before the Lord.
I have no idea how long we worshiped, or how long I was face down on the floor, but at some point we moved into a time of intercession. Everyone gathered around the young man in the middle of the room, some standing, some kneeling, some bowed down. I was still incredibly weak, but managed to gather enough strength to drag myself up and stagger over to the group. I propped myself up by putting one hand on the young man, one hand on my knee, and leaning against the guy behind me. We began to pray, and after several minutes I began to feel weak again. Again, not an uncomfortable weakness, just a feeling of being overcome by God's presence. Then the guy behind me shifted, and I fell away from the group onto the floor.
A good friend was bowed down on the floor near my feet, and when I fell, we both started laughing--it was funny, and wonderful, and joyous, and powerful, all at the same time--as if God Himself had just told the best joke in the world. I suppose that's what people are talking about when they speak of "holy laughter," but that's another term that I think is abused and misunderstood.
We serve a God of laughter. Sarah named her son Isaac, which means laughter, because the very thought of having a son was so unbelievably wonderful that it made her laugh--first in disbelief, then in joy. The Psalmists laughed a lot. Jesus Himself had a great sense of humor--consider his nickname for James and John, the "sons of thunder"--and I have to wonder if He didn't laugh with joy whenever the disciples finally caught on to a particular teaching or parable. What better way, then, for the Spirit to manifest Himself through us than an uproarious fit of laughter?
When the evening finally ended and I was heading out the door, my friend asked me if I had had fun. I answered to the affirmative, although "fun" didn't even begin to describe my experience. I don't pretend to fully understand it, but it happened. I was there, and God was there, and it was beyond wonderful.
If you are a believer, I exhort you to allow yourself to worship the Lord freely, whether with a group or all by yourself, because you need it and God desires it. If you are not a believer, I encourage you to seek this Jesus who can so overwhelm you with His joy and power and love, that all you will be able to do is fall on your face, and laugh, and cry...and live.
Posted by jon at September 4, 2004 07:30 AM