For those of you who have been following this blog, you know that I reference lyrics quite often. Most of these songs come from a church called Hillsong, and this morning I was able to go to one of their services. It takes about an hour to get there from the center of the city so we had to leave roughly two hours prior to the service. Hillsong had their yearly conference this past week so they were especially crowded this morning, it took three buses simply to get the people from the city to the church. The attendance is over 20,000 people every Sunday, it’s definitely big. The reason I love big churches so much is essentially for their music, and Hillsong was perfect. As with any church, there are always going to be little problems and things that you disagree with, but if there were the perfect church then wouldn’t we all be going to it? They played mostly songs from their new album (which I still need to get a hold of) with one exception, Amazing Grace. Every now and then you sing a song and afterwards you just know that things are good, that God is in control and madly in love with this world around us. Since I haven’t been to a church since May in which the songs were in English, this was the perfect song to hear this morning. We sung the Chris Tomlin version which includes a verse that most people don’t typically sing. The verse goes like this:

What an awesome picture to imagine, that once this world is gone and this life is over, God will be standing beside us and will be forever ours. Grace is a beautiful thing. We don’t have to do anything to deserve it, God doesn’t follow us and if our plans line up with His then we get it, Grace is simply given to us. Freely and abundantly. It’s one thing that connects us all. From traveling to Tanzania and hanging out with Maasai people and now coming to Australia to live alongside the Aboriginals, it’s amazing to think that each and every one of us are offered Grace. And it’s amazing to see so many people from so many different walks of life joining together on Sundays to worship the same God. One can’t help but smile when looking around. At Hillsong this morning they had a guest speaker Joseph Prince give the sermon. He is a pastor from Singapore and a very energetic speaker. He talked about how important it is for us to rest and listen to what God has to say. So many times we get pumped up and excited to do good for God, and we jump at every chance given to us. But you know sometimes we just need to rest, and listen to where God is leading us. Rest in the sense that we are not boggled down by the busyness surrounding us rather that we are able to hear what God is saying. Sometimes I get quick to thinking that God isn’t speaking to me. I get impatient at certain times and I forget to sit back and wait for God to work in front of me. So many times I feel that I’m supposed to run ahead and carry out what God has told me to do. It doesn’t work that way, God is the one who runs ahead of us. He’s the one planning things out and laying the foundation for us to follow behind. He was doing that all along for me in Africa and now here in Australia. There’s no way things would have worked out so well had I just jumped ahead of Him and not followed His lead. If there’s anything I learned from Africa, it was how to rest. I didn’t realize it until this morning, but rest is so important. Taking the time to sit and write, taking the time to go outside and stare at the stars and galaxies above us, taking the time to pray, taking the time to sing in a room by yourself, taking the time to spend with God. Church this morning was just what I needed, it made me realize how much I miss LCBC and Calvary from back home. We are very lucky back home and don’t realize it when that’s all we are surrounded by. Even compared to the Serengeti and Uluru and the Outback, church will always be that perfect place to go to at the end of every week. There’s nothing better than standing and worshiping with other people. Whether it is 50 people or 20,000 people, it’s all the same.

(Oh and for those of you curious, the lighting was awesome and it sounded incredible, although I prefer the lighting at LCBC. However they did have insane projectors and video, that was the most impressive. It would be awesome to go play in the catwalks one day, but I’m not sure how I would have convinced someone to let me go up there. Lighting is way too much fun!!)