Dang!

So I went back into my phone this morning to pull up the videos i took last night at the John Mark McMillan concert, and only one of them was there!! The one I really wanted and needed to hear again wasn’t. Anger.

I’m angry because there was one song he sang last night that was my song. The song I needed to here. The song that invited an encounter with Jesus amidst the sweaty, damp, dark bar last night. (sidenote: i love that Jesus isn’t religious. i love that He shows up in bars where two or more are gathered in His name. I don’t know, perhaps He even perfers that. I’m pretty confident that place hasn’t ever experienced that raw power of Jesus before). But there was that one song that I can’t stop thinking about. I recorded it to hear it again, but for some reason its not on my phone. The chorus is “harbor me in the eye of the storm, I’m holding on to the love you swore.” And then you break out into a bunch of “Woaaah-oh, woaah–oh-oh”‘s. It had me in tears.

I’ve been to a lot of worship “concerts” before. But this one was different. I think it had a lot to do with who John Mark is a person. So humble, so loving, so understanding of the fact that He needs Jesus. Why is it so easy to forget that? His lyrics are raw and hit you right where you are and yet have the ability to pull you into a higher perspective. The song Oh How He Loves, which I am sure you all know…was written because his youth leader died in a tragic car crash and John Mark was angry at God. And yet in his anger God met Him with overwhelming love. Its easy to ask why in life. Why this? Why that? But I need to become better at asking What. What, God, do you want to show me? What is the purpose of this pain? I think if we hear that answer its a lot easier to become harbored in a storm instead of being tossed constantly by the waves.

So, thanks to John Mark McMillan for writing reality and singing it in bars across the country.