Quiet Please.

Most people don’t like watching golf. They equate it to watching paint dry.

I, however, disagree.
One cold and dreary winter’s day when I was a kid I started watching golf. And I have had it on my “list of good things to do a Sunday afternoon” ever since. I think the part that got me hooked the most was that wherever the golf tournament is located it always happens to be green, which is something that could not be said about where I grew up. Trust me, winter was only ever white where I lived, or this really drab brown. So watching golf on the tv probably gave me a breather from winter, and I can surmise that is the real reason why I like to watch golf.
All that to say, on my “List of things to do during my life” was a little entry that said, “Go to a professional golf tournament.”

Wolfies, consider it done.

When I was out in the Northwest this summer, I went to a golf tournament.

Houses are always lovely on golf courses.

Me and my brotha!

Not too shabby a view??!!

Now that is what I call an 18th hole!

Turns out, golf tournaments are like a whole culture unto themselves. I don’t really know how to explain it, but all of the people kind of looked alike, we all dressed alike, none of us talked above a hushed tone, everybody wants to be “following the leader.” Whenever masses of people are all doing the same thing that concerns me a bit.

But, alas.

One thing I hadn’t ever thought about is that there are people standing around with these signs all over the place.

The first thing I thought was that I wanted to go up to said person and say, “Alright, just give it to me straight, what do I have to do to get that sign of yours?”
But that wouldn’t be Golf Tournament Appropriate, now would it? Not a hushed tone at all. Unfortunately then I procured no sign.

But standing next to these sign people was more often than not a person doing this:

And I thought, “I have seen something like that before.”

 Needless to say that for the rest of the tournament my mind was not on the leader’s golf game.

 Why do people raise their hands in church?

Why do people go to church?

Better question: why do I raise my hands in church or go to church?

Are we supposed to raise our hands?
What does it all really mean?

Those were the thoughts I was thinking for the rest of the day.

Church has been on my mind a lot lately. I think I will write about it at another time, but I feel that Christians in general have lost a sacredness to their thoughts about what they do on Sunday mornings. It really seems to have become routine, rather than the thoughtful WORSHIP of an Almighty God (the ONLY Almighty God, might I add).

Anyway.

And then it dawned on me. While I don’t know specifically what raising your hands in church should mean, and more importantly what it has been watered down to mean to most people today,  I think the golf world has got it figured out—maybe even more than the church does.

It should mean, and I will even go so far as to say that simply BEING in church should mean, “Quiet Please.”

I’m not talking about people not talking in church. I am not talking about people not bringing coffee into church. I am not talking about worship songs being only without drums and microphones. I am not talking about getting rid of modern worship music. I am not talking about pastor’s not telling jokes during sermons (for aren’t these a handful of things that church bodies really get LOUD about?).

No.
I am talking about you, yourself.
Me, myself.
Telling ourselves to “Be quiet, please.”

 To assume that we all go to church without preconceived ideas of who God is, is completely ludicrous. All of us carry in baggage every week, notions about how the world works, and crazy hope for how we want the future to go.

But what if, rather than having a flippant attitude, a chip on the shoulder, or a mind set, we walked into church and said to ourselves, to our preconceived ideas, to our controllings, to our situation manipulations, “Quiet Please. God can do what he wants.”

The one passage in scripture that comes crashing into mind is in Revelation 8 when we read the phrase “and there was silence in Heaven for about half an hour.”

Wait a second! Hold the phone!

Silence in HEAVEN?

The place where for all eternity angels and saints proclaim “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty who was, and is, and is to come”????
Yep. That’s the place.
And it was silent.
Why?
Because Jesus had just done something to carry out his plan. And heaven knew that was something worth being silent for.

I guess it goes without saying, but maybe a quietness of heart, where I put all of ME aside, and say, “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come,” is the only time it’s appropriate for me to be in church. And especially for us to be raising our hands in church, just like those golf tournament people.

Now I am not advocating one way to worship more than another. I am not arrogant enough to think that demonstrative worship is the only way, and I am not naïve enough to think that all people are wired to be very open with what is going on inside of them. But I am saying that all people, regardless of whether you are a “hand raiser” or not should think about how they enter times of worship.

Have you told your spirit, thoughts, preconceived ideas, “Quiet Please”?

Are you accepting the truth that God is the Holy one in your relationship, that he is the Almighty one, who really does know what he is doing?

Will you believe that he was, he is, and he will be?

Are you resting in the fact that no good thing does God withhold  from them whose walk is blameless (and because that is true you CAN rest)? {Psalm 84:11}

 Will you let this mindset flow into your everyday life and not just your Sunday morning life, for isn’t worship more than just something we do on the weekends?

How can you live your life with a little more “Quiet Please”?

God is good. We know this. Let’s offer a quiet heart as a testament to that.