..::Nehemiah Moms::..

Have you ever noticed that learning new skills can sometimes leave us achey?  Our young students get sore hands when learning to write.  A new pianist will feel the ache of practice.  Even a new driver can get a sore ankle from holding down the accelerator.  So it is with learning new worship skills.  Tonight I have achey shoulders from practicing a worship skill.

I was thinking about the blog about learning to raise my hands in worship and I realized I still deal with a lot of pride or embarrassment.  It's rare that I keep my hands raised for more than the chorus of a song.  It's usually just for a phrase or two, and the reason I drop them is usually out of self-consciousness.  But do I stop singing so quickly?  No!   So why can't I "bless the Lord" any longer than 30 seconds?   Our church sings for half an hour or more and I'm singing every song.  What's the difference?  My pride.

This afternoon in my room, I was listening to a worship song and realized that perhaps this is another opportunity to apply the 3 to 5 minutes technique (see earlier blog) to expand my capacity to "bless the Lord".   Most songs are about 3-5 minutes long, so for one song, I knelt down, closed my eyes, and kept my arms up, enjoying blessing the Lord.   WOW were my shoulders sore!  I realized that this is a skill that will require some practice.  And it has given me a new perspective on the verse, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."  Mark 12:30 (NIV)