With Abandon

Ever lose control? Just losing it over something, whether it was cheering a Bears (or Colts) victory or smashing your thumb with a hammer. There are times when we give up self-control to be present in a moment. It's called abandon.

It's a word I've come across a lot lately. It's the name of the band that is coming to Senior High Institute (camp) this summer, so I've been listening to their music. It's also a theme throughout the scriptures in a call to lose ones' self in the worship of God.

The people volunteered with abandon, bless God!
Hear O Kings! Listen O princes!
To God, yet to God, I'll sing.
Make music to God, to the God of Israel. (Judges 5:2b-3, Msg)

To abandon one's self to God is an all encompassing act of faith. It's to set aside one's self-conscious awareness, or simply let go. In worship that can be to clap the hands, to raising the arms, to lifting the voice regardless what anyone else does or thinks. It's an act of connecting to God with the heart and soul instead of the mind and thought. It's to lose the self to God, to connect the self to God, it's to in some ways become one with God. (we are not God, but we can get so close to God as to become at one with God!) This is the goal of worship, to be so in tune with the presence of God that we are lost in God.

Yet we rarely lose control because we spend our lives trying to gain control.

Yes, sometimes it's okay to be lost! When it's in God!

Lift your hearts high, O Israel (us), with abandon, volunteering yourselves with the people - bless God! (Judges 5:9, Msg)

Peace ><>
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