overwhelmed
It’s one of those days with locked-up steel skies and a chill seeping into my skin; one of those days when time bruises our backs and driving to school feels like slowly untangling knots; one of those days when I wonder what caused all this mess but have no real hope for a sensible answer. It’s one of those days when I sit back against the seat and intentionally loosen my grip on the wheel, telling myself to breathe, that the stress is optional. It’s one of those days when I would forget my way, except that Riley starts singing, sliding up the volume and with it her voice, and it’s this:
I see the work of Your Hands
Galaxies spin in a Heavenly dance oh God
All that You are is so overwhelmingI hear the sound of Your Voice
All at once it’s a gentle and thundering noise oh God
All that You are is so overwhelmingI delight myself in You
Captivated by Your beauty
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by YouGod, I run into Your arms
Unashamed because of mercy
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by You…(Overwhelmed by Big Daddy Weave)
At the stoplight, she grins and the grin breaks apart into laughter, and joy rolls over her shoulders, until she’s jiggling in some kind of off-beat dance, still singing. Her eyes flick to my mouth; it’s an invitation. So I see: I get to choose this kind of overwhelm over the other. I open my mouth and let the words, my own breath, flood in and rush out. I am emptied and filled, all by the Spirit of God. So we praise, my daughter and I; we sing truth, loud and wild and off-key, crawling through traffic to school. And I realize that this kind of freedom isn’t something that can be stolen away. We chronically imperfect people are so perfectly loved.
All at once I remember a passage of scripture about the communication of the Spirit, who supplies us a musical language full of otherworldly power. “…be filled with the Spirit,” Word says, “speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit (Ephesians 5: 18-19).” We believers have applied the verse to our worship gatherings, but its meaning really stretches far beyond the bounds of an hour or a place. In the Psalms, David enigmatically writes that God establishes a stronghold against his enemies and even silences them through the praise of children and infants (Psalm 8:2), and right now, I see. Sludging through rush hour and battling my grumbling, and Riley chooses His language to speak to me, and the minute we start singing the enemy flees. Our conversation feels a bit, as Paul suggested in his letter to the Ephesians, like spiritual drunkenness. Joy floods and covers us; we give thanks, giddy to be so overwhelmed. That word–overwhelm–means, by definition, “to overcome completely in mind or feeling”; “to overpower, especially with superior forces”;eventually, “to overthrow,” and in a matter of moments, the Spirit has certainly slain my dark complaints. Worship is the spiritual tongue, and when we allow it to overthrow us, the Word always transforms and renews and unites us uniquely. More than a book or a holy phrase, the Word of God is a force, a living and active being that “separates soul and spirit” and “judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). We’re not just singing; we’re speaking to one another with songs from the Spirit. We’re filled with the Word, and in His presence, the enemy quakes.
Adam guffaws from the back seat; his deep rumbling laughter dips and soars. While struggling for years to communicate with our words, Adam has been entirely fluent in worship. His first voluntary prayer came tumbling out of his baby mouth one night as Kevin knelt by the bed, the full word-for-word chorus of a song called “East to West” that tells the story of the gospel. “In the arms of your mercy, I find rest,” he said that night, “Jesus, you know just how far the east is from the west: one scarred hand to another,” and this before he could speak to us at all in sentences. Even now, the only time Adam will sing is when he worships, and every single time, he lets praise overwhelm him completely, until it brings him to tears. So, I’m not surprised that he’s fully invested in the conversation, that he understands and shares our thanksgiving, that it brings him joy.
“Oh, I just love that song,” Riley says as the last chords fade, and then she giggles, leaning forward to push one button and then another, until the whole thing starts again. And so, we worship.
