contest for attention

LifeLight FestivalWe're at Life Light Music Festival this weekend. Over 250,000 people over three days listening to around 100 different bands. Too bad it rained.

But it was wonderful to be in a large field surrounding the main stage and be part of well over 75,000 singing praise to the Lord--jumping, clapping together. The sense of community was wonderful, and the Church grew for a moment as we joined together in one spirit.

After the Jeremy Camp set on Saturday night, we wandered over to the smaller Firehouse stage in a smallish circus tent; big, but not too big. It had a coffeehouse at the opposite end with sofas, easy chairs, and tables. I was looking forward to Jason Upton's set at 11pm. When Jason's band began, he introduced a sense of intimate worship in his unique style, and scores of people entered into that holy place together. Within 30 minutes or so, the other two large outdoor stages emptied out, their scheduled acts done for the night, and most of the people filed past the Firehouse tent. Soon there were about 300+ people in the tent. The hubub in the back by the coffeehouse area got louder and louder, and when Jason ended one song and started the next one quietly, the contrast between what he was doing and what others were doing became pronounced.

What a picture of the challenge we face in the body of Christ: those gifted and called leaders guide us into a place of great intimacy, deep worship close to the throne of God. But the world and its clammor isn't far off. When we try to get still before the Lord, the din distracts us from that rich silence he offers as a sanctuary--if we let it. Such is the contest for our attention. It's the ultimate question of life on earth we need to answer: the one that will determine if we give our children the love and attention they need to know we care about them; the one that will prove to our creator that we'd rather be with him than apart from him.

What am I giving my attention to?

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