Altars...

There is much to be said about altars. When I was growing up, my family worshipped at this little church in my hometown. At the front of the sanctuary, there was this man-made altar-of-sorts that held the “church Bible” and the communion pieces on various Sundays. Altar times were not the exception, they were the norm. I loved them. I loved being up at the altar and would often crawl below this man-made altar and use the small opening underneath it as my own, private little prayer space. I just loved it. It allowed me to feel closed-in with God. Private. I would go there often, even during off-times when church wasn’t going on. I got a key and would go there to meet with the Lord. It was there (amongst other places) that I learned to know God. I loved Him and would sit before Him, allowing Him to love on me. Even now it is an intimacy that I find hard to explain. It was an intimacy that I was made for…that we were all made for. As I began to grown up, I started to go to the altar less and less. At the time I did not question this. For some reason, I was able to reason this out within myself, chalking it up to my not “feeling a conviction that I needed to be there”. I wasn’t the one that needed to be there, as I had gotten everything out before the Lord in my own personal quiet time prior to coming to church, etc. You name it—I’m sure I used it as a reason for not going forward. During this time, I also became painfully aware of my own personal, physical short fallings, and would often feel self-conscious at merely the thought of going forward in front of a congregation full of people. The sweetness of the altar somehow lossed its sweetness. Over the years, church itself seemed to change quite a bit. One church I attended on the East coast would not refer to “altar time” but rather, would call this “family life time”…..even now I am not really sure what that means. Somehow along the way, it seems to me that the church in general became somewhat embarrassed of the altar. We seemed to go out of our way to make ourselves, and our visitors, feel comfortable. It wasn’t uncommon to hear statements like: “Right there in your seat, take a few moments with the Lord”; or “Lets take a few moments and quietly pray to the Lord before we go on”…or the one I have heard the most, “No, I’m not going to ask you to come forward, but if you will just quietly lift up your hand…nobody else but me looking around”. We all, it seems, had become self-conscious. It’s as if altar time altogether had gone thru a transformation of sorts. In recent months I have felt as though God was re-visiting this in my own life. There is a breaking, a revealing, a vulnerability of sorts that occurs within me when I put one foot in front of the other and walk forward to the altar at my church. Even now it is hard for me to explain, but I am quite certain that it is a real and tangible thing. I have begun to crave it. I have begun to crave the vulnerability, the breaking, and the revealing that seems to occur within myself during these moments of time. And then God spoke something else to me about these altars. As a young girl, the sweetest of these moments occurred when I was actually under the altar. God has begun to revisit this. I had no idea during those times years ago that I was actually living out a mental picture of our lives before God. What He is saying has been clear: He wants me over not under. When I was young I would eagerly go to the altar and crawl under the table of it, in hopes of closing myself in with God. But He does not want me under the table of His altar. He wants me to actually be over. As in, on top. As in, a living sacrifice. Fully alive. Fully aware of life around me. Fully surrendered to Him and His will for my life. Paul tells us to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). This is true worship. True intimacy with our Father. Allowing Him to do as He pleases, trusting that He alone knows how our lives should be and turn out. Living sacrifices. May this be our lifestyle of worship before Him.