Accustomed to His Face

Remember that classic song from My Fair Lady…”I’ve grown accustomed to her face, she almost makes the day begin”? It reminds me of a tender passage from Psalm 27, in which King David writes of His relationship with God in a most intimate way:

One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life

to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek.

Imagine that—seeking the face, the presence, the expression of the Living God in prayer and worship.  Pursuing intimacy with God is just that—growing more and more accustomed to His face, His voice, His move.  If we loosely define being intimate as being relationally close to another, it becomes apparent that intimacy with God has less to do with what we know to be true about Him and more about really knowing Him…relating to Him, focusing on Him, talking and listening to Him, loving Him. 

A former pastor of mine described it like this.  Imagine, for a moment, the difference between sitting around your table on your birthday and having your closest friends and/or family members enthusiastically (sometimes humorously) singing happy birthday to you.  You are aware that beyond their singing skills and the familiar words are numerous shared experiences which over time have yielded a closeness and intimacy with them that transcend this simple tradition. 

Now imagine dining out at your favorite restaurant on your birthday and having total strangers surround you—your waiters and waitresses who have been conscripted by their boss to acknowledge your special day with some local version of Happy Birthday.  First, if you’re like me, you are feeling awkward or, worse, dying inside of embarrassment, and secondly, you are aware that these well wishers had little choice in the matter…it’s part of their job. 

Sometimes we as followers of Christ can fall into patterns of “doing our job” as the worship leaders at Hope…going through the motions, even saying and singing the right things, but feeling empty inside or at least a bit disingenuous.  I have even heard teammates confess that they feel hypocritical when they sing worship songs because their personal lives or walk with Christ have hit a rough patch or even flat-lined. 

It is at times like these that we can do a quick inventory, asking a simple question:  “If God seems far away from me right now, who moved?”  It is even in the dark and desperate times that God reminds us “Draw near to Me, and I will draw near to you.” (James 4:8)  For His part, He never stops calling, never stops wooing, never stops pursuing us.  Just move toward Him.

Also, there is an urgency to God’s invitation to stay close to Him when He warns: Seek the Lord while He may be found, call on Him while He is near. (Isaiah 55:6)  Yes, He promises to never leave us or forsake us, but there is something about delaying or postponing getting close to God for a more convenient season that becomes less likely the more time passes, and we grow comfortable with the distance.

My encouragement to each of you is to have at least one other person in your life who routinely asks you how you are doing in this area.  Close, personal brothers and sisters in the faith can help us fan the flames of our passion for God before we find ourselves running on spiritual fumes.  Fumes are more like the remnants or even memories of former days when we really walked hand in hand with our God.  Let’s make a covenant in the worship ministry to lovingly encourage and challenge each other to keep the main thing the main thing.  As worship leaders, let’s commit to growing more and more accustomed to His face before inviting others into His presence as we lead.

tad