So we went to the Friday Night 10 pm set last night. A very musically talented team gifted in hearing the Lord and responding in Spirit-led worship lead the 2 hour set. The room was packed. People were ready to meet with the Lord.

An impossibility.

We sang, starting with soft songs of adoration, fixing our eyes on the Lord and reminding ourselves of His faithfulness, beauty, and mercy as we thank Him for them. We can sense His Spirit drawing us, it’s delightful, refreshing, and a bit exciting to say the least. We’re not quite sure where this is going, but hey, we are just worshipping. Some are dancing freely in place, some standing, others quietly sitting, all engaged, focused on the eternal. This continues for about 30 minutes, the Lord wooing us to Himself by His great love.

A necessity.

Suddenly, it seems like something breaks open, much like water going over the cliff and gleefully plummeting down to meet itself at the bottom. There’s this openness, there’s this joy, and the music turns instrumentally celebrational. For about 45 minutes, as the windpipe floats rich melodies over the piano, guitar, and drums, the feeling of victory and thankfulness erupts from within. Like flowing down a river, we sing our own songs of love and worship to the Lord as the instrumentation beautifully flows over us as a fragrant offering unto the Lord.

A delight - but….wait.

Gripped. Struck. What is going on? There’s something bigger going on. In a moment, there is this terrible fear that comes over us. There’s this beauty shed abroad in our hearts, but we begin to tremble. Wait a minute. God knew what He was do……Holy!

An ambush. Encountering God. No…God encountering me.

Fear. The fear of the Lord is here, and an ounce of it in truth is too much to handle. Plunged into despair, feeling strength leave my members. There is a tinge of familiarity here, to that Man, but all of the sudden I feel like I know little of Him. Little of that Man. Little of what is really His. The depths of Him, the God of eternity, with whom light dwells. It feels like you are sucked into an energy-less vacuum, and you instinctively forget to breath.

Beautifully Terrible. Terribly Beautiful…..Holy!

Definitions are different. Holy. Righteous. Power. The previous meanings are washed away like a dead language, replaced by an empty ocean to be filled with water that just started dripping. But wait, I’m still here. I’m left overwhelmed, almost forgetting where I am or what has just blindsided me, but I remember - I remember - the blood. The blood. In the midst of this great gripping, I feel terribly unclean, but beautifully clean. Then…

“I love you.”

Words spoken many a time, but now majestically from the fresh vantage point of my now empty ocean, setting the topography and the scope of whats to come. I feel empty and full, dead and alive, low but high, dry but taken by surprise by a fire-hydrant to the face.

The worship, the wooing, the longing, the carrying - it all leads to….

The revealing. And we can never really prepare for the revealing.

The wooing and the drawing is for the revealing. And the revealing is everything. Without it our oceans are full, not of the real thing, but of water that we filled it with ourselves for appearance sake. The blood of Christ enables us, the Word is the map, and the wisdom of the fear of the Lord sets our heart to tremble and let God reveal Himself. God reveals Himself so that He can pour Himself in us as we daringly gaze on Him.

For what our eye beholds our body will be full of.

Experiencing God is a lethally delightful activity. But it’s the way the world will receive Him, and experience Him. We must receive Him and experience Him. It’s difficult. It’s overwhelming. It messes with our boxes. It strips the forest bare and makes the deer give birth.

“And the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea.”