- Coming back from exile
- Refreshing Water of Life
Ps. 119:25 - I lie in the dust, completely discouraged; revive me by your word. (The water metaphor is implied)Fast forward to this weekend at the Boiler room annual weekend retreat.
Jeremiah 2:13 "For my people have done two evil things: they have forsaken me - the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all." (Turning your back on the joy and life that God provides and looking for it in alternative places).
John 7:37-38 "If you are thirsty, come to me! If you believe in me, come and drink! for the Scriptures declare that rivers of living water will flow out from within.
There was a good time of worship and prayer in the morning and then we had the afternoon off by the lake (see previous post).
After supper, there was another time of worship led by an outside team - husband and wife, on guitar.
One of the songs he led us in was one he had written based on
Numbers 21:17 There the Israelites sang this song:The image was of a well that had been filled in and no longer providing water. Apparently, enemies would fill in wells, to prevent others from using them. The Israelites sang to the well and it was unclogged and water flowed again.
“Spring up, O well!
Yes, sing its praises!"
The song we sang based on this was "Open up the wellspring in my heart". We sang it first for ourselves and then turned and sang it for the person on our right and our left.
Sunday morning we had an unpacking of what had happened the night before and people were coming forward and sharing. One guy shared how he really felt the Lord speaking to him about unclogging the wellspring in his heart. The leader asked people to stand who felt the same way. I stood along with about 15 other men (all men - very interesting. Later there was another issue shared and they asked people to stand and this time it was all women who stood).
The neatest part of this story for me was what came NEXT on Saturday night. Unbeknownst to me, there was a guy there named Cory who the Lord had told to give up drumming for a season. During the retreat, the Lord told him that the time was up and he was released to drum again. (He only shared this later). He was waiting for a time to drum but did not want to insert himself in worship led by an outside team, so told the Lord he would need to something overt.
About three minutes later, the worship leaders said, "If there are any drummers, Let them come forward". So this guy literally explodes onto the scene, accompanied by 3 or 4 others. He was WAILING on the djembe drum. They were playing several djembe, a drum set, snare and cymbal. Folks started dancing.
(This community is fairly charismatic in worship style but my impression is not that it is one where there is frequent dancing. I have not really seen any up until this point).
Okay, if you know me very well, you know where this is going. I have dance in my bones and it frequently comes out when most others are happy to just sit or stand. When this drumming started, let's just say the dancing sprang out of the well in my soul. And I danced like David for a good hour or so.
People saw me dancing and said, "You must dance like this in Africa" but I said, "No, not really. There is not a lot of dancing in church in Mali and in other settings it is normally the women who dance".
I was surprised to say that I had not really danced like that in 20 years or so. And it was a really great gift from God.
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