The thoughts that ran through my head during Praise and Worship on Sunday morning.

Song: "Here I Am to Worship"

We were singing the second verse and I'm already having a hard time understanding how to worship God in a building far away from any kind of pain and suffering without offering any help after we just watched a video on the effects and the damage on the tsunami in Southeast Asia. Then the line comes, "King of All Days" and I stop. I can't sing anymore because my thoughts start to reel.

King of all days? King of that day? How do the pain and anguish match up with an Almighty King?

The congregation continues to sing, "I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross."

My thoughts: Heartache, absolute heartache. He was the king that day yet he had to watch his son die. Heartache might not have been the total cost but part of my sin cost my king heartache.

Then I return to that day, the day the Tsunami hit. He was king that day. What did that day cost him? Heartache. Absolute heartache as his children grieve, as they died, as their families still hope. What's our response? To grieve with them, to experience his heartache for them.

I can't sing the last part, "Here I am to Worship" because it's weak - at least it was that morning. Being here is easy and safe and costs me nothing. I'm not saying that they need me in Asia, I don't want to be that ignorant or proud. I don't want to think that as an American I can solve the world's problems but being here and raising my hands in a well-built chapel with a great sound system and well-dressed friends sitting beside me was hard to swallow that morning. I wished with all my being that morning that I wasn't Here to worship. Actually almost everyday of my life I wish that I was somewhere else in the world to worship. Maybe I should write a song about that. What would I call it? Ooo...ooo...I know.

"I'm leaving on a Jet Plane, I don't know when I'll be back again." Okay, so it wouldn't really be original but the theme still works. Get over it.

Grace and Justice,
Joy