Beautiful Children of God

Today was a great day at Ann Arbor Assembly of God. To be honest, it was one of those days for me that I had to force myself to go. But once I got there, I knew God had big plans with the time I was there.

At my church, we have all different styles of worship. Some quietly sit in their seats and pray, while others come up to the alter and raise their hands and sing as loud as they can, as well as everything in between. Due to it being Missions Sunday, the kids stayed out in worship with their parents instead of going straight back to Victory Kids (aka children's church). Normally, I wouldn't notice something like this, but today there were a few parents and kids that caught my attention. The first thing I noticed- the kids sing very loudly and are not ashamed if they are not on key. They are just so in love with Jesus they can't keep it in. And hearing these kids shout today "IF OUR GOD IS FOR US, THEN WHO CAN EVER STOP US?!" and raising their hands and clapping just brought tears to my eyes. They want the world to know who their savior is! I thought for a brief moment "I wish I felt like I had the freedom to let everything go and worship like they do!" But that is the beauty of what I am learning through going to A3OG, we do have that freedom to worship as children of God!

The second thing I noticed, Pastor Jeremy (our youth pastor) was worshipping up at the front alter with his young son. I watched as his son sang the songs and just kept looking at his daddy and every couple minutes would just break out in a huge smile. After a couple of times of this, PJ looks at him, and he just smiles and bends down and wraps his arms around him and picks him up in a huge hug and they continue worshiping together with the daddy holding his son.

I thought of all these things, and I just started to cry. These things reminded me so clearly that we do not need to have this huge, dignified faith. We need only to have the faith of a child trusting their daddy. And it was just beautiful to see these children so in love with their heavenly father and so trusting of him. It really made me take a step back and listen to what my heavenly father has been wanting to say to me recently.

So here is my random thought of the day for you: Stop trying to have it all together. Be free like a child and run to your daddy and fall into his embrace. He loves you SO much and is not requiring anything of you. Just trust him and his embrace tonight. He loves you as his sweet son or daughter, don't ever forget that!!