I'm Ready Now

If you would have walked into the Fellowship Hall around 7:45am yesterday, then you may have wanted to turn and leave. The praise team was getting ready for the early service and we were sounding and looking rough after a little break. After I hit the ceiling with the guitar while picking it up for the first time, I popped my left hand in a painful way while changing chords on the first song. During a perfectly natural, “Ouch I just hurt my hand” hand-shaking-out motion, my ring flew off my finger and my pick fell on the floor. Neither me nor my keys-player could remember what key we were supposed to play our songs in and my keys-player didn’t remember that he was supposed to have his keyboard set to a trumpet sound on one of the songs. Our vocalist was doing fine until I tried to break into harmony and then she went into the harmony part with me, leaving no melody to be heard. At this point, all three of us of us just stopped and laughed because there wasn’t much else to do.

Before calling the rehearsal quits, though, we decided to run our last song. We’d introduced it as a special music two weeks before and had scheduled to follow-up with it as a congregational song yesterday.

“I just let go and I feel exposed, but it’s so beautiful—cause this is who I am,” we sang. “I've been such a mess, but now I can't care less—in you I rest.”

As we sang, the silliness quietly turned serious, and I found myself singing from a place I hadn’t sung in quite awhile.

“I was so caught up in who I'm not. Can you please forgive me?”

Tears began to fill my eyes—as they are filling them as I write this tonight.

“I've nothing left to hide—no reasons left to lie. Give me another chance.”

Tears began falling from my eyes as we continued to sing:

“Lord I'm ready now, all the walls are down, time is running out, and I want to make this count.
I ran away from you and did what I wanted to, but I don't want to let you down. Oh Lord I'm ready now. Lord I'm ready now.”

When we finished the song, my goofy little praise team and I shared a powerful moment of silence during which all three of us recognized God’s presence in the room.

God truly is amazing, you know? In the middle of what was a purely unintentional not-so-spiritual time of worship preparation, God made God’s presence known in a way that I did not expect. As I spontaneously poured out my heart and released what I think may have been the final bit of residual hurt from a cut-off that had cut me to the core, I knew that God was listening, that God was forgiving me—and that God was giving me another chance—daily giving me another chance.

God does the same for you, too, friends—for all of us. Listens, forgives, and daily gives second chances.

And you want to know something interesting? We didn’t even end up singing that song in worship. The guest preacher, my dad, ended his sermon in a way that absolutely did not lead into the feel and message of the song. He ended on a high note of praise. We decided to, as well.

“My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who walks beside
Who floods my weaknesses and strengths
And causes fear to fly
Whose every promise is enough
For every step I take
Sustaining me with arms of love
And crowning me with grace”

Amen.