I do not know where you fall in terms of how you worship, or what kind of church background you have. My suspicion is that the readership of missionerickson.com is varied. There are probably many of you who are hand-raisers, while others celebrate with their arms firmly folded. Some who may be prone to dancing while others work to resist simply swaying. I think it is a solid guess that there are not many snake handlers reading this blog and that the majority of you don’t even bring reptiles to church at all.

In the midst of this variety, the one thing I do know is that when it comes to worship I’m easily distracted. All it takes is a raised hand in my peripheral vision to get me off beat. When I am in a worship setting and I know the words, then I close my eyes. The people around me might think it is because I am overly spiritual, but between you and I it is simply to limit my distractions.

Well, this week, Servants 4 Him hosted a mission team from Shiloh Church in Alabama and each night we met together to worship and talk through what God was teaching us. At about the middle of the week, in the midst of a particularly good worship song, I got distracted. I was not distracted by dancing, hand waving or even a murmered “Amen!”. I was distracted by my 10-year old daughter, Emily.

There she was, her eyes closed and her voice singing out praise to God. Her eyes were not closed for any shallow reason like her Dad, her eyes were closed because she was stepping into God’s presence. Watching Emily worship spoke directly to me and I thanked God that she is in a place where a big part of her life here in Guatemala involves gathering with mission teams and worshiping. My prayer is that is that these experiences produce lifelong habits for her and continue to convict me of my very un-childlike faith.