eruptions of worship...

How many of you can say that you danced for Audio Adrenaline? Last night some of us had the opportunity to go see Audio Adrenaline in concert and it was an incredible worship experience! Highlights: during Big House, Mark Stuart came out into the audience walking on the chairs in the high school auditorium, then he went to an old guy in the audience, made him stand on his chair, and the old guy proceeded to finish the song and did quite well actually - he knew all the words and even sang on key; they did DC-10 which rocked the house, they hadn't done that song for 2 years; Hands and Feet provided an excellent opportunity to worship God and re-establish my deep desire to be his hands; Get Down, he lifts me up I get down, he lifts me up... - need I say more? Really I enjoyed their entire set but during King I wanted to get as close to the ground as possible and put my face to it. However many hands lifted high in worship, all of us worshipping the same Almighty God, singing together in unison with the same objective. They all spoke of how awed they are by the intense beauty of Alaska. None of them had been here before and they were all just totally awestruck. After the concert, I stood in line forever to meet them and have them sign a magazine article I have about their work in Haiti - it was the only thing I had. We had an ACC group picture taken with them and talked to them for quite a while after everyone else had been through the line. We fellowshipped together and we even got to perform some native dances for them. (Yes, I have been learning native dancing.) They kept saying, "Do one more! Do one more!" And one of them even tried to join in on the last one learning the steps and the hand movements. It was cool! I got to embrace a couple of them as their manager was shuffling them off to the Green Room (Their food, by the way, was catered by our campus chef who is amazing! We are so blessed to have him!). It was a fun night, and to think that I almost decided not to go!



This morning at about 5:15 Augustine volcano erupted shooting ash plumes 20k feet into the air. The plume is currently moving north and east; the volcano is located south and west of us and the plume is moving right towards us. The alert for the volcano has been changed to RED, the highest level, and the AVO is expecting an eruption like the ones in 1976 and 1986. I have never been around volcanoes or anything even remotely similar.

These events have made me think about how truly awesome God is, you know? He designed this world and created it knowing things like this could happen. He knew that we would try to understand these things, figure them out, and study them. I wonder, though, if he knew we might try to understand them and study them more than we seek to understand him and study him. Then I started thinking about Isaiah 55:12 "For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace; The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." Maybe the mountain had built up all this praise and couldn't contain it any longer and was breaking forth into shouts of joy before the Lord. What would it be like if I built up my praise until it was "pressurized" and then just blew it all over the sky, shooting acclamations 20k+ feet into the air? Do I do that? Or do I send up little bits of praise continuously? Maybe I need to be more like the mountain in some respect - feeling so unbelievably blessed that I just spew out into the Heavens my thankfulness, adoration, and praise for the one who created me, provides for me my every need and so much more, helps me, comforts me, awes me, loves me, disciplines me, reveals himself to me, pursues me. I definitely think I should continuously praise God, the Triune, in little bursts of joy but I also think he longs for me to just erupt with unadulterated levels of worship-magma in his direction.