I have heard of
intellectual worshippers before. I am pretty sure I initially assumed that the
term was a nice way of saying, “You’re a scardy-cat.” Now I think very
differently.
If an emotional
worshipper ( and I assume that it what I would be coined) is someone who feeds
off of feeling God’s Presence and having an emotional encounter with Him, then
I assume an intellectual worshipper is one who feeds off of having new levels
of understanding about God and having intellectual encounters with him. Hmm.
At least that’s
what I thought. There are down sides to both: With an emotional worshipper,
they may struggle whenever they don’t feel God. Also, they must learn how to go
through life without feeling like
everything is good and feeling like
God will come through. On the other hand, an intellectual worshipper might
struggle when they do not understand God. Along these same lines, they must
learn how to of through life without understanding
everything and understanding that
although God will come through, it is on His terms, not ours.
I have always
been an emotional worshipper, so life is basically over when I do not feel like everything is going dandily.
Up until yesterday, that is. For the past few months I have had to keep going
with the public face that everything is okay. Sometimes I felt the need to do
this with my friends because it seemed idiotic to me to be down all the time. I
was constantly urged to not meditate on the negative. “You can’t do that, you
have to trust God. You have to think on all the good that has come out of this
and know that good will come out of it.” To which I mentally responded, “Because
every time something good came out of the pain and frustration, more bad
trailed behind it. Yeah, so that makes perfect sense… Focus on the positive while
life and God screw you over. Yeah… what an idea.” These things should not be
uttered out loud, just to warn all of you. You will either cause them to draw
back in surprise and hurt OR you will light their fire and they’ll repeat what
they said in hopes that by hearing their lecture three more times you’ll get it
through your skull. Both of these types of people love me dearly and I am
blessed to have them in my life.
I needed to hear
their words of encouragement and spurring on—even in lecture (a.k.a. emotional
torture) form. I also needed to be left to hurt at some points, like yesterday.
Yesterday I came home from church and driving around with some family members, and
I had to stew in my room. I looked back over the day and realized that nothing
had gone bad, nothing big. I also realized that I was livid. My heart had been
broken (something I had to let happen for my own good) and I wanted to know
what God expected me to do and to have the desire
to do it. I was not happy with just getting by; what reassurance did I have that
the next time He would be there to help me by again (like say, in the next five
minutes??)?
I can say that
two things have kept me going, kept me seeking Him, two reasons why I have not
done a lick of homework, two reasons why I am joyful despite the frown you may
see on my face right now: Obedience and taking an honest look at God’s Word. So
if God told me to pray about something and I did not know what to pray or was
afraid to pray (for fear that He’d answer… another story), I would ask Him to
do as He willed to do in that area, life, situation. And when He nudged me to
read His Word, I did so with brutal honesty… and was very much changed with the
encounter. I believe that is when I began to appreciate intellectual worship. Because
while my heart was a bloody mess of an organ, my mind was being renewed by
Truth. It did not matter that bad things would continue to happen, it did not
matter that my friends were so much more intelligent and hopeful than I, and it
didn’t matter that my future husband was someone I was not too keen on praying
for. All that mattered was that God was
who He said He was, and if He wanted to grow me up during this breaking season
and tell me to trust and obey, well then by His Grace I was going to do just
that.
There is hope for
us emotionally and intellectually-based worshippers alike. His name is Jesus;
head-bang into His Grace and find hope and life J
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