When did you first worship?

Worship is probably one of the more complicated words in Christianiese. Yes, there are bigger words with heavy concepts and people argue about them and whatnot... But worship....It is such a loaded concept that for the sake of this post I will just ask, "When did you first worship?" As we worship through our everyday life, when was the first time we felt the angels sing in the bottom of our ears? When was the first time you felt God surround the inside of you? I am not talking about a slain in the spirit/toungs/healing/life shattering event. I mean that instant, that wisp of electricity when you knew without a doubt what you had always just heard...

Here is mine:

The summer of my sophomore year of high school. We had just moved towns, states, pretty much everything. It was hard.

Let us put that aside.

I had the chance to see my favorite band, Five Iron Frenzy, play an outdoor show on Lake Michigan. It was beautiful. Not just the surrounding area, but the surrounding people. It was the Ska/Punk show event of the year.

I am not very good at writing word pictures, so just pop these images into your brain for a minute.

Hot
Muddy
Stinky
Moshpit
Loud
Mosquitoes
Lots of Hi-Top Chucks
Kicked in the face (accident)
Ska
Awesome

The band had played for about an hour and a half, pulling out their best of the best. Every one just dancing all night long as hard as they can. FIF always ended a show with their song "Every New Day," and we were all just waiting for that moment. But, they had something else in mind. All was quiet and out of nowhere Reese Roper began the first few lines "God of all creation, of water earth and sky..." and the next line was accompanied by nothing but the voices of the crowd (honestly I was thinking, "How do some of these people know this song?") "... the heavens are your tabernacle, Glory to the Lord on high."

It was perfect. Dirt, sweat, blood, voices mixing into one moment. The song ended and I was on my knees. I felt quiet, I felt the Lord.

The song ended, and the band ripped into the second to last song "World without End." This is probably one of my favorite songs by any band ever. Here is the chorus.

(I didn't have to look them up, I still know them by heart:)

"In the soundless awe and wonder
words fall short to hope again
How beautiful, how vast your love is
New forever, world without an end."

Those words still give me shivers.

This is why I think this is the first time I truly worshiped; I was singing at the top of my lungs, with people just like me. The punk/ska sub culture in a church all their own. I identified with everyone around me, singing a vision of life eternal, "New forever, world without end."

There was a split second where I thought of the last year, the disasters, the hard times, the sweet moments, the looming shadows, but in the midst of all of this, I felt something rip into my world, a fresh opening to something wonderful. I really can't describe it, but I knew, that no matter what happened, God was with me and would be with me always.

I realized that worship isn't something you just do for an hour a week. It isn't a type of music, it isn't a task that a specific person can just lead. It isn't a commodity or a porduct. Worship is the moment that you realize, on your own (meaning not parents, sundayschool, pastor) that God is with you, that God has been with you and that he will never ever leave you. Worship is the idea and the practice of living in that very moment. At that concert and all that goes with it, was the first time I saw that moment. I saw that God is in fact three dimensional; not just in heaven and earth then and now, but always.

At that silly concert eight years ago something moved inside of me. It shifted everything that I know. I want to hold on to that thing, that shifting, moving thing. That thing is the key to worshiping God.

When did you first Worship?