Radiate: Tristan Mason’s blog

I’m writing a series of daily Lent meditations for our church (and whoever else is interested).  If you’d like to receive one each morning, you can sign up on our church’s home page at http://www.aplacetoconnect.com (in the left nav bar) or snag a RSS feed from the REP blog at http://rep.aplacetoconnect.com.  The first day’s meditation is below.

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Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. -1 Peter 5:6 (NIV)

Have you ever wondered what the word ‘Lent’ means? It comes from the Old English word lencten, springtime.  A closely-related Old English word is lengan, from which we get our word ‘lengthen’. The days are getting longer; spring is just around the corner; the frozen earth of winter is about to warm and thaw. But Lent is really about a deeper kind of thaw: the warming of our frozen hearts. It is meant to be a time of preparation for celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. Lent is a time of sharing, even in some small way, in Christ’s sufferings so that we may also experience the power of His resurrection (Philippians 3:10-11).

The way up is down. We must humble ourselves before we are in a position to be lifted up by God and experience joy in the free, overflowing life to be found in Jesus.

Would you pray this prayer in preparation for the journey?

The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.

I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.

I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.

Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me. Amen.
(prayer from Henri Nouwen, Show Me The Way)

This video became intensely personal for me at about two minutes, when Bell talks about inviting people into a life we are not living.  Every worship leader (really, anyone in “church work”, whether volunteer or paid) has felt this way during those weeks when everything is going wrong, every moment has been spoken for, and there is no end in sight.  We push through, only to arrive at our worship gathering anxious, exhausted, and uncentered.

The problem is that for many of us, these moments have become a way of life.  I know I’ve been there.

Most of us have heard talks or read articles about how to lead worship honestly from a place of surrendered brokenness, and we have heard something similar to the following: Moments of feeling completely overwhelmed are inevitable.  Fighting for joy and surrender in those times is critical, and crawling toward God in the midst of those things becomes itself an act of worship that will blossom into joy.  That’s all great stuff, and it’s true.  Those moments can center us and result in worship.

But the hard, unlovely fact of the matter is that for the most part, my times of exhaustion have not been God-ordained valleys I’ve had to struggle through; they have been self-inflicted deserts I’ve entered through overcommitment and spiritual malnourishment. Bell’s assessment is moving for me precisely because it has described me at different points in my life.  I’ve had to find ways of overcoming my own tendencies toward desert living.

One of the practices I have found is the “divine hours” or “daily offices,” which are essentially fixed-hour prayer and meditation.  I’ve only been struggling at it for a few months now, but already it has been one of the most difficult—and rewarding—disciplines I have practiced.  I suspect that this is because it provides opportunity for both spiritual centering and healthy daily rhythms if practiced consistently.  Also, the sort of prayers (often Psalms) used in these books are so different from my habitual prayers that they cause me to look at God, myself, and life in a different way.

If you’re interested, check out The Divine Hours trilogy by Phyllis Tickle and/or Celtic Daily Prayer by the Northumbria Community.  The first I picked up at my brother/friend Aaron’s house (I’d call him my brofriend, but that just sounds shady), and the other I stumbled across on Amazon.  I’ve found that the mixed use of both has been most beneficial for me.