Thursday • 12/9/2021

We are taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we are thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday, December 13.

.Be Still

“Mr. Kidd, your mom’s heart is pumping blood as if she was 20 years old, not 91,” explains the ER doctor.

Flabbergasted, I reply, “OK, so why’s she in the ER?”

“She has congestive heart failure. (Pause, apparently taking in the blank look on my face.) Your heart has to have a constricting strength to pump blood out. She’s got plenty of that. But your heart also has to have an expanding strength to receive blood. Your mom’s heart is losing that ability. If the heart can’t relax and expand, blood can’t enter, and fluid gets backed up in the body. Eventually the congestion will take her out and cause her death. All we can do is manage things until that happens. I’m sorry.”

Several months later my mom’s congestive heart failure was indeed being managed … for the time being. She was doing well, even if, as she said, “Getting old will either make you tough or kill you!”

Heart Health

My mom’s particular heart ailment – power-to-pump-out-but-not-to-take-in – had given me pause, though. I think of my laundry-list prayer life, and of my affection for non-stop, high-octane, über-decibel worship. Of all the pressures I feel to be producing, conducting, crafting, designing, tweaking, critiquing, supervising, and leading worship. I wonder about my spiritual heart-health – and that of those I’m leading.

Shortly after my mom’s hospital stay, the Robert. E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies, where I teach, was in session. I’m accustomed to Chaplain Darrell Harris leading our morning devotions with unusual spiritual perceptivity. But one morning I was caught unawares.

I can’t go into detail – but let’s just say I was mired in some inner conflict. So, I’m pouring myself into the praise and prayer, looking to “worship” my way out of the funk. After his message Darrell says, “We go now to a period of silence. By silence, I mean silence. I don’t mean silent prayer. I don’t mean silent meditation on Scripture. I don’t mean rehearse your day’s schedule. I mean: be still. Be quiet, and just listen.”

We knelt, and sang a lovely setting of “Be Still” (from Psalm 46:10a) that Darrell and Eric Wyse had written.

Take in

Then the silence set in – glorious quiet, healing peace, grace-filled silence. I felt my heart relax and expand. I felt Spirit entering. I felt conflict flee. When, after a few minutes passed, we rose to sing “The Lord’s Prayer” (Eric Wyse’s version is sort of an IWS anthem) I rose a different person.

In that moment I realized why the ancients revered silence, why many sought the desert, wanting to hear a voice the city drowned out. They knew the vision of God was a “Well, shut my mouth!” sort of affair: “The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth be silent before him” (Hab 2:20). They noticed that in Scripture some visions demand modesty of expression: “Do not write this down” (Rev 10:4). They observed that even in heaven itself when something big is about to happen, silence may be what the moment requires: “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour” (Rev 8:1). They perceived that, like Job, if you get the audience you wish for with God you just may have to say: “I lay my hand on my mouth” (Job 40:4-5).

Worship needs the same sort of rhythm our hearts require. Pump out: “I lift my hands in praise, for you are majestic and mighty and worthy of honor.” Take in: “You are merciful and tender of heart, and yet unsearchable in your judgments and inscrutable in your ways – and so I bow and wait and listen in silence.”

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Fra Angelico , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons