Every once in a while, after leading a worship set, someone shares a testimony of Father God moving upon them and revealing His heart to them during worship that takes my breath away and overwhelmingly reminds me again of the incredible honor we have of coming into His presence.  Recently, we had some dear friends of ours come to our Saturday Church Service to share with us and the Evergreen Children’s Home on prophetic worship using drums, shofars, and flags and banners.  It was a beautiful time of worship and freedom being released; however, in the back of my mind, I alway unfortunately remember a funny little memory that has somewhat ruined using flags and banners in worship for me.  Long story short, a very enthusiastic prophetic lady once spent a worship session waving a banner in my face and tapping me on the head with the pole while I was leading worship.  Quite distracting.  I’m glad the Lord has given me a new testimony to remember instead.

Our friends, after teaching, spent the day fellowshipping with us waiting for the evening worship session to begin.  God is rapidly growing the worship and prayer movement in Nepal and every week more and more people are coming to pray and worship, especially on Saturday nights for the bilingual English and Nepali worship session.  A group of students from a university in America on a mission trip to Nepal heard about our Saturday night worship sessions and showed up as well.  God showed up powerfully as we lifted His name on high in Nepali and English and cried out for His Spirit to fall on the nation of Nepal and awaken a Nepali generation to rise up as an army of worshippers and prayer warriors.  Out came the flags and banners, some with words like Hosanna written on them, others that looked like fire, a giant one with the Lion of Judah on it, and myriads of other little colourful ones filling our little prayer room with colour, light, beauty, glory, and, little did we realise, deep healing for one of the visiting students from America.  One of our friends found her crying in the hallway and felt the Lord say to give her a hug.  She held the girl until the girl stopped crying.  After the girl stopped crying, she began to explain to our friend that when she saw our friend dancing and waving prophetic flags and banners in worship, she reminded her of her mother who was also a prophetic dancer.  Her mother, the girl said, would run across the church dancing and releasing joy everywhere she went, waving a huge Lion of Judah banner.  She shared that she felt like the Lord bought her all the way to Nepal for this particular worship night to release deep healing for her heart.  Her mother just passed away six months ago.

A recently favourite new worship song of ours by Bread & Wine has a beautiful bridge that says, “Break open this box around my head around my heart.  You’re better than I think.  You’re better than I think.”  I love when He breaks the box around my head and heart.  It’s so easy to get cynical, critical, and discouraged; especially when the people God has called you to love seem to fluctuate in their identity going from prodigal to son to prodigal then back to child of God over and over again.  It’s refreshing to be reminded that He cares about us and about them intimately and deeply.  He sees, He knows, and His name is Comforter.  It’s challenging to be reminded that we’re called to love like that, intimately and deeply.  To see, to know, and to represent Him, partnering with Him, the Comforter, for a broken generation.  What a honour, what a privilege, what a responsibility, and what a joy and, amazingly enough, sometimes all it takes is the boldness and courage to keep worshipping and wave a little banner.

 

– CLEMENT CHEN