In previous post of this series, we talked about worshiping with our eyes open to see the intersection of grace and need. Today, let’s take our consideration further.

It is common to talk about worship as a one-way conversation – God speaking to you or you speaking to God. Often, we believe these things to be conversational. I speak or sing to God and then he answers. Or God fills a place with his presence, and I listen and then respond.

But with an infinite, omnipotent God, this conversation can exist completely in harmony. God can be speaking as I am speaking; I can be hearing what he is hearing, and it is as much worship as if he were speaking directly to me.

When Moses was on Mt. Sinai with him, God said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry…” [Exodus 3:7] Moses had heard those things to. That was why Moses had killed the Egyptian [Exodus 2:11-15].

But when God says he has heard what Moses has heard – that he has heard it perhaps even through Moses’ ears, Moses rejects God and tries to find ways out of being responsible for what he heard.

I imagine Moses thinking, “No wait…that’s not right. You can’t use what I’ve seen and heard as what you’ve seen and heard. How can you possibly feel what I felt?”

Often in worship, our experience and our emotion are the language God uses both to hear us and also to prepare us for ministry.

I cannot tell you the number of times someone has perceived a need in the Church and told me about it. When I shock them by replying that perhaps God has equipped them to meet the need, the response is almost always the same. “Oh no, God isn’t calling me into that.”

How exactly does God call you into a specific ministry? If you’re hearing and seeing what he is hearing and seeing, isn’t that something supernatural that God is doing? We sit around waiting for a worship buzz to tell us what to do when God often uses our senses.

So, don’t close your eyes.