Laying Down My Religion: Sunday Mornings Only

I remember having a conversation with one of the more radical Christians in my circle; lets call her Bianca. Bianca shared that there are some days the Lord leads her to stay home from church. At first it sounded a little weird, but not weird enough to upset my spirit. Within a few months, I would learn why. Here's the story:

I scheduled an important exam on a Sunday (for legitimate reasons). While I had been studying and praying for the entire month of July, I had a host of feelings on exam day. You see my relationship with this particular exam has been quite exhausting. Long story short, I failed it 9 times.

I began my day as usual, praying in the Spirit to chase away and dismantle any negative emotions that would try to take me down on that day. Between prayer and breakfast, I began having some doubts, and a little bit of anxiety. I skimmed the chapter on anxiety in my study guide and figured, I did this enough times already. I can take a test! Pass or fail, I can manage my anxieties, sit down, and take a test. A test that I've already taken 9 times!!!!

Having moved on from those negative emotions to strategy, I headed out to my exam site. Between my home and the exam site, I encountered a series of uncanny (yet consistent with the kinds of attacks that come my way) attacks. Still, I kept a leveled head and went on to take my exam.

After the exam, as I was walking down the street, I decided to tune into a virtual church service. I felt that I needed to get a Sunday word from a corporate setting for the week ahead (Just writing this reads stupid! lol. Why do you need a word for the week? Why does it have to come one way on a particular day, and why does it have to come from a man behind a pulpit? You can get a word for your week from God Himself.) Anyway, I felt that I needed a supplement for missing church earlier. Somehow virtual church would give me what I need for my week, or what I missed out on (so I thought). I tuned into thee most anointed church I know! Every portion of every one of their services are anointed. You CANNOT fall asleep or drift away here. But guess what? The entire time I was watching the service, in the back of my head I kept hearing vaguely "Lion of Judahhhhhh!!!!!" One of the greastest prophets and teachers of our time is ministering and all I can hear is a man belting out "Lion of Judaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!"

I finally got it. Maybe this isnt what I needed, and maybe I kept hearing that song because the rhema word for me was wrapped up in it. I proceeded to look up the artists who sang that song, found the song, and listened to it. As I listened to this song, 2 things happened: (1) I realized I had slipped my anxiety right into my back pocket, and carried it with me into the exam room. After the exam, it just sunk deeper into my pockets. Within a 3-hour timespan, I had been anxious about the exam, frustrated about the attacks from pharoah and His army, and now the red sea, worried about the outcome. Its like worry and anxiety walked with me throughout this entire process and I didn't even know it. (2) When I listened to the song entirely, "Lion of Judaaaaahhhhh, You have overcome!", it was as if Abba grouped everything I've been feeling throughout this entire exam day process and shattered it with one line from one song. He has overcome! I've got victory! He has overcome my anxiety; He has overcome my passed failures; He has overcome the effects of my failure; He's overcame the enemy in me; and He has overcome the purposes of the enemy concerning me; He has overcome beyond my present and into the circumstances of my future. Every obstacle that was meant to take me down and out, He has already conquered! Thats when I exhaled anxiety, and realized I had been holding my breathe for some time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_paT3PATo2g

(Song: Victory, by Samuel Medas)

Let me tell ya'll something, mess around and put God in box, and miss out on Him completely. Religion said I needed a Sunday morning sermon, but relationship says I needed a song! Thats the trap we put ourselves in. On a Sunday morning while I'm sitting in church, I need something different than when I'm walking out of an exam room, where I've consistently faced multiple failures. I was in a different space, and needed something different. A sermon couldn't do it. Not even a sermon from the greatest preacher and teacher of our time could do it.

Just to be clear, church is necessary and vital in the life of a believer, but Sunday morning is not a life line! If you miss one Sunday, you're not dying; You can still hear from God; You can still sense His Spirit, and "nobody getting in between". If your spirit man says don't go this Sunday, obey. It is quite possible that God can, and my want you to encounter Him in a different way.