Beach Worship

So a little bit (read: a whole lot!) of awesomeness to finish off our day. We've been hearing nonstop about tropical storm Andrea on its way this evening and looking at a very ominous forcast for the next week (complete with special parking directions because they're expecting our street to flood). In the evening a couple girls wanted to do a quiet prayer/worship time on the beach and asked if any guys from our room would go with them (standard safety procedure). I hadn't yet gotten my quiet time in so I said I'd go with.

As we waited up for a 3rd girl who wanted to join as well as another of my roommates, we noticed rain drops in the pool. This seemed an end to the trip in my opinion, knowing Andrea was due to hit that it would only get worse. Nonetheless, the girls really wanted to go anyway saying "oh it's barely sprinkling now" and even spread the word so that about 30 people turned out to make the trip. As we started for the beach I prayed aloud with the girl leading the charge for this trip that the rain would hold off for us to get a little time in. 

Arriving there we found a spot on the beach, circled up and sang along to the guitar, along with a few prayers and a psalm. After a short while the guitar passed to another and a girl made her way down closer to the oceanfront to pray on her own. She went far enough that we couldn't see her in the dark from where we were, so I went also so that she wasn't by herself, staying about 100-150 feet up the coast so she still had her privacy. After a few minutes she hollered "Eric come over here." When I got there she said:

 "This is really blowing my mind right now, but I'm looking at the ocean that goes on for thousands and thousands of miles out, and thousands and thousands of feet deep. And then the sky that stretches forever and is even bigger. And how the heck did God know to put the moon right where it is so the waves look like this? And God is so much bigger than it all, but even if it was only me on this entire Earth and nobody else He still would have sent his son to die for me. That is blowing my mind completely." Never having thought of it in this way before, my mind too was blown. How crazy and immensely personal must that love be?!

Just a few minutes later one of her friends came down and hugged her, and they walked back down to the water together while I went back to the group. Once I got back I was surprised to see that much of the group had broke off while a smaller group huddled together with the guitar to worship in Spanish. It was such a sight to see people's unique talents and backgrounds come to light in worshiping the Lord.

So the real kicker in the midst of this awesome beach worship experience goes back to our asking of God to hold back the rain while we worshiped. Not only did he do it, but look at these 2 radar pictures taken over an hour apart just after we started and again as we finished worshiping:

In the end this was a truly mind blowing experience. Seeing God answer prayer so powerfully and directly (wouldn't you know it, the rain came just as we arrived back at the Cerca!), and then for the Holy Spirit be with us is such a tangible way after what was otherwise a rather challenging and seemingly dry day for many of us.