God's heartbeat? - by Elizabeth Reynolds

Sometimes in church, it is easy to sing the songs, hear our own voice singing, checking out how good/bad our morning voice is, we may hear the odd 'bung' note played by someone in the band. We sit and listen to communion and look up at the air-conditioner and wonder whether it could be turned down a notch as the vents are pointing straight at you. We hold the bread and the juice and we listen to that little baby grizzling away restlessly or think about how the bread seems a little stale this week. We watch Pastor Ben pace up and down during his message and notice how effortlessly and discretely he changes the slides on the projector program. We might be starting to smell the faint delicious smells coming from the kitchen if it's a shared lunch day, or stare at the Kid's Church board again and find the lovely piece of artwork that wasn't there last week... Afterwards, we might sit next to the person we sit next to every week and talk about the heat, or the dishes, or the garden. We might hear Beth's loud conversations about her peanut butter and date sandwich, or Pastor Ben's tremendous laugh, or all the constant running footsteps of the children...

 But at church... have you ever heard... God's heartbeat?

Sometimes our hearts are touched in church. We sense God's presence, we know He is near and we feel very good. Is it the piano or the flute, the beautiful songs we sing? Is it the preaching or maybe just the quietness of prayer as we talk to God.

Sometimes it is more than all of these. The heartbeat of God is knowing He is alive and at work in the world. In our hearts. But when we come to church, we have to really listen. And it's not just with our ears... When we worship earnestly in God's house and sense His presence, we hear the heartbeat of God.

So I challenge you - each Sunday - to listen. In each moment of the service. Through the music, through the scriptures, the words. In the silence, in the loudness. In the conversations over cake afterwards.

Do you hear it? God's heartbeat. Listen.