A SONG BECOMES A PRAYER

 

This evening I attended a Darlene Zschech/Hillsong concert. I am not famous for expressing my emotions, but the concert was AWESOME! I couldn’t do the white-people-concert-jump because my ankle is still recovering from an injury I had recently, but I really enjoyed it, and when I found a window, I tweeted my comments and pictures of the event. Darlene has SO MUCH ENERGY! For one thing, I couldn’t believe I was actually at a Hillsong concert, and seeing her was like a sensory overload, one that, true to nature, no one else would have seen except me. I’m big on sound, so hearing all those speakers do their thing was a personal ministration. If ever I become a very good instrumentalist, the goal would have been so that I would be good enough to play for Hillsong. Those guys…. It felt like each instrument was doing it’s own individual praise ministration. As someone next to me said, it felt like the guitar alone was singing the words of the song. Watching the backup singers do their thing, I am sure I haven’t seen such consistent passion anywhere else. I don’t think it’s even fair to call them backup singers; with voices like those, they could easily sell their own records, and have their own grand concerts. And there was Darlene… Right now, in my mental ranking system, she is my favourite all-time worship leader. Let it be also known that this ranking hierarchy was set up as this article was being written. She is no spring chicken, but she clearly had more energy than anyone else on that stage; except the drummer. That guy had enough energy to power a small bike. The crowd… well, it was kinda a mixed reaction. The standing crowd was very involved in the entire thing, while those in the gallery and upper floors looked like they came to watch a movie that was a hit 6 months ago. Plus, my African brethren really brought it. We know how to worship, no doubt.

 

A lot of popular songs were rendered at the concert, and it’s Hillsong, so they were almost all sing-along pieces. For some reason, it is so easy to follow a Hillsong number, with the projected text and all. The song which appealed to me the most, and which inspired this article was probably the shortest one as well: All I Need is You. This song was rendered somewhere in the middle, and as it was sung around me, it stopped being words with appropriate harmony, and it became more than that. There are very few such songs, but in that moment I was able to separate the music from the words, and while I was in that hall, surrounded by about 5,000 worshippers, I prayed my only prayer of the night: All I need is you, my Lord. It was all I wanted. I was alone in that auditorium, nothing else mattered, my dreams, my interactions, my challenges, nothing else mattered. When Darlene also did a rendition of How Great Is Our God, it was then that I endorsed my decision to come for this concert as the best thing I would have done with my time this evening. That song, All I Need Is You, was, and is still my prayer. That right there was my act of worship. I would never trade it in for anything else. And to think I was this close to deciding not to go for the concert….

After the concert, I went to meet up with people I knew, who were all over the place. There was a light in everyone’s eyes, like we had shared a unique experience, each person in his/her own unique way. One thing was common, though: we had encountered God in that hall. The concert is past, and I am officially a concert person now. I did pray one more prayer. While Darlene was exhorting, she said that God was rebuilding and restoring dreams. I claimed it for myself, and I claim it for everyone who is reading this article. There is NOTHING God cannot, and will not do for you. All you need do is separate yourself to Him, and ask. Let Him show you how important you are to Him.

 

If you follow me on Twitter or are a Facebook friend, you have probably seen what I am about to write a number of times, but I know for sure, after my experience tonight, that I will never praise any man the way I will praise my God.