Lift up holy hands

There was a concert Saturday night that I have been looking forward to for weeks. Not really even a concert...a worship night, led by a woman who passionately loves Jesus through worship and is talented while doing it. I figured it would take me about fifty minutes to get there, so I planned my evening accordingly, but very quickly I felt that there was something trying it's best to keep me from getting there. I got off work Saturday an hour and a half later than I was expecting. No problem, I still managed to leave my house on time...well 45 minutes later I actually got out of the city. I chased down a gas station in downtown Seattle but got stuck in traffic, got to a convenience store that had everything but gas, got stuck in construction trying to make it to a real gas station before running out of gas, got stuck in traffic again because of a huge accident on I-5. I felt that choice looming before me: am I going to give in and be frustrated and let that affect my attitude for the evening? Or am I going to recognize the spiritual battle and pray that God would protect my attitude and prepare my heart to worship Him? Praise God for his mercy- that amazing night of worship would have been hard for me to sit through had my heart been soured by frustration and annoyance. Instead it was a night of worshipping with a newfound freedom, one of those nights where everyone else in the room begins to fade away and it's just me and God. Where I can sing at the absolute top of my lung because the room is just full of people praising Jesus. To lift my hands unashamedly. I have realized there have always been things to hold me back from worshipping in true freedom; not good things, but areas of immaturity, like being too concious of what others will think. But God has continued to pursue my heart and convice me of his love, his amazing love. "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."