Sunday, September 1, 2019

A "Hallelujah" in Every Season

This morning I brought the Lord a “Hallelujah.”

I was thinking about a song I wrote a few years ago about how we bring to the Lord the fullness of this word—“Hallelujah”—in the different seasons of our life, and how it is drawn from different places within us, how it resonates with different nuances of whatever has flavored our moment, and that its honest tones relay a multitude of words that come up lacking beside it.

So this morning, as this song rolled through my mind, testifying of the complexities of the seasons I have walked through before and how this “Hallelujah” has reverberated from my heart in them, I gathered all the pieces of my current moment…the failures, the triumphs, the pains, the confusions, the impatience, the joy, the thanksgiving…and with no need to sort through it, I bound them up in this honest, simple word of praise—chock full of desire and understanding and complicated floundering—and directed it upwards to my Lord with an undivided heart.

And this beautiful God of mine received it, with all it held and all it lacked. I offered Him the honest praise from my current season, and He received it…just as it was. I wish I could explain to you what happens to my heart when I find myself accepted, again and again and again. And I also hope that I will never stop marveling at the Lord’s willingness to hold within His spotless hands a blemished lamb, who with honest, pleading wanting has simply turned its eyes toward Him.

Hallelujah.