March 29, 2024 • 29 mins
In this enlightening episode, Michael and Meredith Mauldin, draw from their depth of experiences to unpack the concept of spontaneous and prophetic worship. They engage listeners with personal anecdotes, insights, and inspiration, urging listeners to embrace the beauty and vulnerability of stepping out in faith and transforming their immediate world to resemble God's kingdom here on earth.
Meredith shares her personal journey with spontaneous and prophetic worship—relating trials, training, and revelations. They shed light on the misconceptions surrounding spontaneous worship and underscore the importance of listening, creating safe spaces, and celebrating the risk. The role of faith in inviting God’s presence and aligning the musical beat with spiritual intent is also highlighted.
The couple goes beyond the four walls of the church, enlightening listeners about the possible impact of worship music in secular spaces. Their goal is to encourage a deeper connection and understanding of God's character and nature through worship and emphasize the importance of exploration, risk-taking, and openness to experience the divine.
Tapping into the heart of the matter, this episode intimately explores the transformational role of worship in our connection with God. Highlighting the shift from structured to spontaneous worship, the couple acknowledges the mix of fear and excitement that accompanies this journey. They encourage listeners to allow their hearts to connect deeply with the Creator and to regularly practice prophetic and spontaneous worship.
The episode doesn't shy away from discussing the challenges faced in the modern world. It highlights concerns about today's fast-paced lifestyle and its impacts on our connection with God. The need for quality time with God is stressed, alongside prayer for the courage and grace to delve deeper and discover the riches of His divine heart.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The world can never pass away, oh Jesus, I'm your man.
Nice timing. There you go. Welcome to the Song Lab Podcast.
Welcome. This is Michael and Meredith Malden where we discuss all things worship, music,
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creativity, arts, family, and our desire and hope is that we inspire you and
equip you to create with God and transform the world around you and make it
look more like heaven on earth. Yes. Amen.
It's been a while since we've been on. It has. It's been a little bit,
which is sad, but we're glad we're now here. It's just you and I today.
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It's the dynamic duo. Yeah. We're talking about spontaneous and prophetic worship. We are.
But right before that, But we've been married for 19 years. I just want to say
that off the bat. That's a big deal. It is a big deal. We just had our anniversary.
Got to celebrate 19 years, reminisce.
Doesn't feel like 19 years. It doesn't. And you like me even more today than
(01:04):
when we got married. It's real.
That's a good thing. I hope you like me too. I do too. All right.
So spontaneous and prophetic worship. Yes.
I think that- And studying this for the last 18 years, really,
on a journey after worship.
And the Lord woke you up one day on it's all about worship and we have just
been going after the last 18 years or so. What does it look like to worship God?
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And so one of the things we wanted to talk about today is spontaneous and prophetic
worship because it's become very normal in most of the circles that that's a norm.
I mean, not all circles, but it's become very popular and accepted.
But I'd say really it's only been kind of explored, explored, not explored.
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I mean, obviously tequila, we could talk about that a little bit.
Well, we have to talk about tequila when you talk about, not tequila,
tequila when we're discussing prophetic worship or spontaneous worship.
And I think it's important to discuss like, okay, well, what is it? Why is it important?
And what is it not? What is it not? Yeah. And why is it powerful?
And why is sometimes it not powerful?
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So why don't you begin with your journey of understanding this and stepping into it.
I know for you, you were kind of thrown into the deep end when we were at a church in Denton.
And a lot of times they would prophesy from the pulpit and then right afterwards
go, okay, now Meredith's going to sing a prophetic song over the body.
And you're just thrown on the spot and you'd have to just come up with a song that was revelatory.
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It rhymed, it had rhythm and was good.
Yes, I did get thrown out in the deep end. It was is the best, hardest.
It was an awesome training ground season for sure, where I got to learn a lot
about that and see that it was some part of worship and part of,
you know, testing it out.
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I failed a lot, you know, in that season as well.
To back up a little bit on that, like all I'd known before that was just,
you know, just to sing a song in church. You know, it was more of a performance.
God rocked me. And to really understand what worship was after we got married
and we were in Jerusalem Jerusalem and kind of had an encounter.
We talked about that in previous episodes.
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But then getting into a church where they really honored and paved the way in
the prophetic and spontaneous worship, it was a whole new world for me and a whole new realm.
And not knowing what that really meant, but being willing to dive in,
it was very scary, honestly.
Because, I mean, first of all, they were a lot older and more experienced than that.
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And I'm brand new to it and not sure exactly what I'm doing,
but it was just learning to really tune into what the Lord was saying,
trusting when I would get called out to sing that the Lord was,
that I, that they were seeing something and then I need to, to step out in faith
and believe in their faith.
Even if I didn't have anything in that moment to step in, in their faith,
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that they're seeing something and, and, and sing what the Lord is saying,
you know, and that's scary ground.
You have to trust, Trust in the people that are around you and trust that God's
going to meet you in the middle of it, you know? Yeah.
I would say that some of the most powerful times we've had in worship have been
these moments that were spontaneous, off-the-cuff, prophetic,
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however you want to define that.
I think we can get into that in a minute, but why do you think those moments are so powerful?
I think you can't be dependent on yourself. It's like, it's not scripted. It's not safe.
You can mess up. And it's like God's strength is perfected in our weakness and our dependence.
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And I think with spontaneous and prophetic worship, it's dependent on hearing
and being a vessel to be flown, I mean, flown through, I guess, a flow through.
And so spontaneous worship and prophetic worship is supposed to be connected
to hearing what he's doing or saying in the room or what the Lord is saying
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or what he's highlighting, an aspect of himself,
and then singing that out.
Well, why is that more scary?
Why is that more like, it takes a risk. It takes more faith. You can mess up.
It can, what if it flops? What if it's not God? You know, all those things are in there.
So I think with risk, when you step out, the Lord has a way of like meeting you.
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And in those moments, those are so powerful because they're not necessarily
dependent on you and your gift, you know, and what you can do.
It's like you have to be dependent.
It's true. I mean, I've been around people who are not that talented singers
that will step out into this and you'll sense the presence of God show up in the room in a strong way.
And that singer is not that great, right? And so it's not contingent upon the gift oftentimes.
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No, because it takes so much faith and God is attracted to faith.
He loves when we will step out in faith.
And so- Yeah, so Psalm 22, right? God dwells in the praises of his people.
And that word for praise is tehillah.
And many interpret that as that spontaneous song of the heart.
And there's something about that that God really is attracted to because I think
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there's an authenticity in that moment and you're really trying to make a connection,
an authentic connection in the moment as opposed to a song that's already pre-written.
You can kind of do, you can do rote, right? Where your heart can be disconnected from it sometimes.
But you can also take a song that's already been written and pull it into that
moment and where it's fresh and new in that moment and it can be just the same
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as a spontaneous, prophetic moment.
And even though it's a written song. So I think there's sometimes a stigma around,
well, if it has to be spontaneous, it has to be created right in the moment.
But there's a scripture that says the scribes of the kingdom bring forth what
is new and what is old out of the treasures of the kingdom, right?
And so I think it's in those moments sometimes pulling in the old into the new.
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But there's something real significant about that where the Lord really does
honor those moments and show up in a significant way.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think it's interesting because it's really gotten popular over the last...
You know, seven to 10 years, I would say, where it's like, oh,
you see it and it's normalized.
But I feel like there's always been pioneers, you know, that have been doing this.
But I think for a long time, it wasn't, you know, like accepted or people didn't
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know about it and they didn't really do it.
But obviously it's ancient if the word tehillah actually means that.
So David, King David would walk in tehillah praise.
I mean, it was that one of his, I mean, I'd have to look it up.
Psalm 22, he wrote that one. Yeah. So he actually understood tehillah the praise,
the spontaneous combustion of the heart when you're just overwhelmed with love
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or affection or praise, and it just can't be contained and you have to let it out.
You know, what's interesting is we, I remember we got to meet with a producer
in Hollywood who produces for all these big, big secular artists.
And he was so gifted in his craft. And I
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would would watch what he would do and he was a pastor's kid
and i would watch him create in the studio and i knew he understood tequila
because he was bringing in these beats and these rhythms that were just so spontaneous
in the moment and it scared me a little bit because i was like man the enemy's
paying a lot of money for this you know and and these where there's been these secular.
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Lyrics attached to something that's godly it's kind of a scary thing and and
i asked him one one time I go, what are you doing when you create?
And he goes, it's tequila.
He actually understood it. Totally understood it.
So within that, you're saying like taking something of God's,
but then putting something that's not of God.
Yeah. There's a mixture within that. It's almost like a prostituted thing.
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It really grieved me because I was like, man, what he's doing is made for the
church, but the world values his gift more than the church does.
Or maybe there's not a space for him in the church because he's so creative.
And people have to earn a living with their gift, and oftentimes it's hard to
do that in a church if you're a musician.
I mean, how do you feel about that? You're using your gift in a secular space.
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Yeah, no, I think it's a really good question. It's interesting because I think
I have a little bit of a two-sided feeling on it, because there is something
different when the Lord gives you something and He's on it.
I think I've told a story, and I don't know if I've told it on this or not,
but it's worth telling again.
But I was talking about how we as believers should be creating the pop songs
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of the world because we have life and we have God.
And even if we're not saying anything about God in those moments,
that it carries God because he lives in me.
And I was saying that one time, and this kid was telling me,
he was like, man, I was suicidal. I was depressed.
And he goes, but I would listen to this one song. It was just an instrumental.
I would listen to it. And he goes, it would just get me through the night.
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To not commit suicide. Wow.
And he goes later on, he got saved, delivered all the things.
And he came back and he went and found that band one day and realized they were all believers.
Something in that music, even though it wasn't saying Jesus,
though it wasn't doing anything.
It was giving them life. It was giving him enough life just to make it through
the night to give him hope.
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That's great perspective. And so I'm like, sometimes within that, I'm like, yes.
But then I do think that the enemy sometimes uses that and is like,
yep, I'm going to take that And I'm going to put my nasty lyrics that are,
you know, that are death and, you know, just, it's just like hate or perversion or whatever it is.
And, and I'm going to put that with music that's meant for life and godliness.
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And it just feels like, it's like you get to the beat and you're just like, what am I singing?
And then there's just this weird tornness with it, you know?
Yeah. There's not, there's not a spiritual prosody.
There's not a spiritual prosody. Oh, I'm going to teach that. Okay.
Prosody. We teach that at Song Lab a lot. Prosody is when the music and what you're saying match.
It's saying the same thing, there's unity within it.
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But it's still right. For some reason, even if it's not spiritual prosody,
there's still an attraction to the music.
You can't say that the pop music out there or whatever's out there isn't being
listened to because it is. Of course, it's being listened to way more than version music. Way more.
So it's an interesting dynamic.
But back to spontaneous and prophetic worship where there's that creativity
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where you get to explore, you know, the Lord and write and sing from that place.
Like, I feel like the church has really started to step into it,
but I think that there's a lot of questions within it.
What are the questions? What's the difference between spontaneous and prophetic?
I think. How do you do it? I don't necessarily know that. Well,
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maybe spontaneous and prophetic. maybe that is a really good question.
I think it's the, how do you do it? What is spontaneous and prophetic?
Cause I don't think a lot of times right now, what I've seen in some churches
that are trying to step into that, cause I see it's popular is they're just
going to repeat a phrase over and over again.
And I don't think that they know why they're repeating a phrase over and over
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again. It's just like, well, that's popular. And so here's the line that whatever.
And so we're just going to repeat it. And everyone's kind of like,
why are we repeating this song over and over again.
And it's not meant because you're supposed to just repeat something for the sake of repeating it.
I think when you really get an understanding of it, you're searching in worship
to connect with his heart and what he's saying,
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that sometimes you're listening for the faith on a song or something to stick
out because that means God wants to take you deeper into something that he's saying within that,
an aspect of his heart or something that he's doing in the room or how he's revealing himself.
So maybe like what you're doing in that moment, you're somewhat of a treasure
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hunter in the spirit where in the context of the song, it's really like a train
track that's leading you in a direction.
And then maybe as the Lord highlights something, there's like a right turn to
take, but it takes faith to take that right turn to get off that track onto
another track because you don't know where you're going.
But the invitation from God is to take you into a deeper revelation of his heart,
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his character, and his nature. And if you're willing to go there,
man, you can go on this beautiful journey with God because in the end,
worship is meant for our heart to connect.
Like we're supposed to connect our hearts, you know, and sometimes we can do that within the song.
Sometimes the song just is highlighted itself and you don't need anything else,
but there's other times that there's like something that he's highlighting.
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He's like, there's more here in me.
I'm wanting to do something. And so you are kind of like, I've heard it said,
you're kind of fishing in some ways.
There is a little bit of a like you're you're treasure hunting we're gonna look
here a little bit okay no that's it there's there's nothing more here okay well
let's let's go here a little while and see if see if the lord's speaking on
this because you know you don't always know,
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you know and that's where it's scary it's because you know you can step out and,
and and go into this spontaneous moment you know spontaneous out of the out
of the playbook off the playbook you know where it's scary and it might totally
not work but it's also in those those vulnerable places that the Lord shows
up and it's just amazing.
So if you learn to create space.
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For the listening, also create a safe place where you don't get shamed for stepping out.
And that's a real thing. Sometimes- What does that look like practically?
What does it look like to create a safe space?
You're talking about like in a prayer room or in a living room or in your private
times with friends, practice rehearsals. What does that look like?
Yeah. Or even on Sundays, like how do you create a safe place to where you can practice?
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But you You also, if you, if it's like, well, we tried it and it didn't work,
you know, you're not going to be like, don't ever step out again. Yeah.
You know, I think you have to celebrate the risk, but I think the biggest key to that,
is going to be a hundred percent debriefing, having a culture where you're afterwards
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talking about what the Lord do, you know, what'd you see?
Was he, what was he on? What did you feel in that moment? you
know and why did the room explode when we were singing this like what what were
we singing what was god doing that that happened and when we start to explore
what the lord was doing in those things and to know his heart and what moves
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his heart you know because it's not a formula.
God is not a our relationship is not a formula there's things that you know
he likes tools there's tools and there's things that i know you like and there's
things that you know as a a relationship, you know, that I know,
but it's not like just because you like something, you want that every time, every,
you know, the same way, you know, like everybody, this is where it's relational.
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And so I think creating a place where you're allowed to like explore a little
bit, you know, and then being able to debrief afterwards and say,
okay, what did God do here?
And good job stepping out. Maybe we went a little, maybe we went a little long.
We had to learn that at the other room, big time.
We, we did a big pendulum swing, honestly, as we were learning.
We went from an hour of worship, which was what we always did.
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And we would pick six songs.
Believe it or not, early days up a room, we had six songs that we would pick.
And I remember Miller one day, and you would say the same thing.
You guys were like, okay, what if you just do four songs and leave some room?
And I was scared. Why was I scared? I was scared because I was like,
what if I don't have anything that I'm going to be left on the stage standing
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there not knowing what to do?
Yeah, it's real fear. I mean, it's a thing. I think people forget the fear part of it.
It's like, what if he doesn't show up? Then I'm going to be standing here by
myself looking like I don't know what to do.
You know, so there was that. But it was like crazy that I was like,
okay. I literally told Miller one time, he's like, what have you tried for something?
I was like, okay, but if I got nothing, you better get up there and pray or do something.
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Don't leave me up there. Don't leave me.
But God showed up and he met us, you know. But then we ended up pendulum swinging,
which is hilarious, where we'd sing a half a song.
For 45 minutes? For 45 minutes. And it would be like, can we move on?
Can we squeeze the juice out of that thing? Whoa, we just like,
yeah, there was nothing left.
We'd always be like, we squeezed the juice out of that. There's no more juice in that.
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And so it's a part of what we had to learn.
But creating the space allowed for us to try to connect our hearts.
And again, like even in John 4, it talks about like, it's not about the place.
You know, when he's talking about insight to the father's heart on worship,
he's like, I'm seeking worshipers.
It's no longer about the place. It's about the heart.
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And so within that, then spontaneous and prophetic worship are really meant
to get to our heart, to get us to connect our hearts.
And sometimes in the song we can, and then sometimes it's in the space of like
the Lord kind of revealing himself that we can really, truly off the page,
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get our heart connected.
And I think in the end, if we can keep that as the point, as its heart connection,
and it's meant to explore God's heart and open our heart to him,
then it becomes less complicated.
Because I think it can get very complicated, prophetic and spontaneous worship, if it's expected.
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I remember, again, early days when we were really exploring that in the upper room.
And I remember one of my worship leaders coming up to me and it was when the
cameras, we finally started doing cameras.
We started, you know, so people were watching and it was like,
oh my gosh, our upper room was exploding.
And there was a lot of pressure like, oh, I have to figure out how to be spontaneous.
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I have to figure out how to be prophetic.
I don't, what if I don't know where to go and where to take us and how do I plan songs for that?
And I was like, you know what? I don't want you to try to figure out that.
I want you to just pick songs that open your heart to the Lord.
Get off the pressure of trying to figure out how to be spontaneous and how to
be prophetic and pick songs right now that you just open your heart and take off the pressure.
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And then it, and it was like, all of a sudden that, that words of leaders like
took a deep breath. I'm like, Oh, okay.
I can do that. I can do that. You know? And I think sometimes within spontaneous
and prophetic, you know, you feel like you've got this pressure that you need to.
And, and I think in those cultures, the advice that I would give is like in
the cultures where where there's a lot of pressure for it, you need to like
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be able to take your pressure off.
And if you just sing through your song list, that's okay. Yeah.
And give permission to do that.
But I think in the churches that are like, we only sing through our song list,
you know, I'd like, I'd challenge to leave a little bit of room. Yeah.
To leave space. Is that scary a little bit? Yes.
Does it take bringing in your teaching your congregation to wait a little bit?
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Like that's part of the process too.
I mean, I think also, also what would help fuel that for songwriters or singers,
musicians, is really spending a lot of time alone with the Lord because that
overflow will then spill out into those moments. Absolutely.
And I know, because I mean, I'm not a singer. I don't sing, but there's things
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that I'll be spending time with the Lord with.
And whatever theme it is, sometimes will pop up in you guys' worship.
And I know that then I can then get up and share and exhort the body through
the scripture, through the word, through something that the Lord has been speaking to me.
And I remember- So basically your alone time actually flows into the corporate
times. Totally. But if you don't have the alone time, it doesn't always flow. It totally does. No.
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And I know this is kind of funny because we're in the springtime,
but we just had St. Patrick's Day. I remember this moment where I was going
to a prayer set at 6 a.m. Oh, yeah.
And the night before I had gone to Dallas Mavericks game and they were giving
out free little bottles of Irish spring soap. Okay. And-
And it was sitting next to my bed or sitting next to my shower that morning.
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And I was about to go to prayer.
And I felt like the Lord said, put that in your pocket, bring that with you.
And I was like, bring a little bottle of Irish spring soap to prayer.
Okay, I'll do it. So I stick it in my pocket.
And when we get there, there was a group that was about to go on a missions
trip to Ireland that morning.
And so they were praying over them. And the first prayer that's prayed,
they're like, Lord, I pray that you spring this group forward into Ireland.
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Let this be an Irish spring for them, you know? And I was like, no way.
And I go, pull that out of my pocket. I go, here, the Lord told me to bring
this. You know, I pulled out a bottle of Irish spring soap.
And he had that group line up and I anointed them on their heads.
I anointed them with Irish spring soap. They were fresh and clean.
But it's such a literal picture of the Lord speaking. Yeah. And bringing that prophetic moment in.
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But it took the obedience and then being willing to listen and step out.
But it gave that team faith.
It did. That the Lord was really sending them in there and he wanted to anoint
them for what they were about to go do.
And that's in the end what that creates is this faith that God's with you.
He's speaking and he's in the details.
Totally. And that's my favorite part, you know, like following the Lord,
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knowing it's like when he gives you these little things of like,
I'm with you. I'm in the details of it. Yeah.
And he loves to do that even within the worship.
But yeah, I think that's a huge part of it is like, I remember when we were
really doing a lot of spontaneous worship and I was like, okay,
Lord, how do I do this? he was like, sing your prayers at home.
I was home with kids that were little teeny tiny ones, you know,
so they didn't talk and need my time as much, but I would just go around and
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I would sing out my prayers.
And, and that was amazing training ground for me just to just get used to communing
in a way that was like to God in song, which you think Psalms is all songs.
It's all the whole book of songs, you know, and then you got song of songs and
then there's all kinds of songs songs within the Bible, you know, throughout.
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So it's that it's, it's, you know, it's a book of songs. So it's just me learning
how to like find melodies to my own prayers.
And explore that. And, you know, that's where some of my songs were written
from and then also flowed into the spontaneous worship. So it's beautiful.
I think also just play off one more thing on the spontaneous worship was what
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you just said about like your time with the Lord flowed into your corporate times.
And I find that when with songwriting, you know, when you go into it,
like a lot of times people think songwriting is like a head thing.
Well, yeah, that's not spiritual that's not worship but actually
songwriting is a deep meditation of an
aspect of god explain that times so if
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you're like writing a song about i mean just
for the sake of whatever the goodness of god you're going deep into like why
is he good how has he been good to me what do i want to say here what are the
scriptures about goodness you know the goodness of who he is and so all of a
sudden it's like you spent two and a half hours on the goodness On the goodness of God,
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you know, and then in your like prayer sets or your worship times,
if you ever sing something, that's a goodness of God.
Now you have this whole well of things you have dug up about the goodness of
God that flows into your spontaneous worship.
Because now it's like, it just brings you to that place again.
Even like, oh yeah. Cause you're going to like, when you sing it,
when you've dug in writing a song, when you sing, oh, I love the goodness of God.
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Now you have all this stuff that you mean when you're singing the goodness of God.
Now you actually have pictures or stories or whatever else. You may be saying
a very simple line, but there's a lot of depth behind it because you really dug there.
So I think your spontaneous is absolutely influenced by your intimate time with
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the Lord, your one-on-one time,
your creative process, your depth, your deep thinking and going there, which, yeah.
Which is a whole nother topic. It's a whole nother topic that what keeps us from now.
Well, I think you should bring up a point of this.
You told me last night, you go, I actually think the word of the Lord is rare
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right now. And why do you think that?
I think we've got a lot of stuff out there that's very prophetic right now in
general, people putting out prophetic words.
And I'm not going to say anything regarding that. I'm going to honor that's
between everybody and between the Lord and them.
And I think there's some good encouragement and all that kind of stuff within that.
But I think because of social media, because of our phones, because of all that,
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we've become a very shallow people.
We immediately have a second and we pick up our phones.
And we're consuming. And we're constantly consuming and we're not taking the
time to go deep in creativity.
Creativity takes time. Deep in creativity or just deep with God in general.
Yeah. I think there's actually a massive opportunity right now.
I want to say like, okay, I think the word of the Lord is rare because I think
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there's There's very few that are actually taking the time that it actually
takes because time with God is costly. It's very costly.
He doesn't just, I mean, yes, he does speak like little things here and there
and like whatever else, but for real depths of things that he really wants to
speak, like, I feel like there's a cost.
Like, are you really willing to go there? Do you really want it that bad?
He wants to give it to those who want it. It says like, keep seeking, like keep asking.
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It's like this process of digging. How do you find a diamond? It's not on the surface.
It's, you know, you've got to dig. You've got to dig. And it's like the bigger
truths, the bigger, the most beautiful things often have the biggest cost.
And I don't think God sells cheap when it comes to things he wants to truly give that are valuable.
He doesn't want to just give it to you if you don't value it.
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Totally. I remember walking into the museum in Houston and they have this room.
It's all these beautiful crystals and geodes and jewels and all this stuff from
around the world. And I'm like, Like, who finds this stuff?
Look at the beauty that's in the earth, but who's willing to find it?
And it just hit me. I felt like God was like, this is the same way with me.
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Who's willing to search the depths of my heart? Because within there is treasures
for the world to bring forth, to beautify the world. Yeah.
And I agree with you. I think we're in a time where we're in a consumer mindset
versus a creative and also willing to just sacrifice everything.
Our headspace and heart space just to be with Jesus. To just be with Jesus.
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And I think, and because I think there's such a battle for it,
I think if there is that fight to do that, there's a real opportunity.
And real reward. And a real reward. And I'm convicted of the same thing.
He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, right?
And he says, it's the honor of kings to seek it out.
It is. So it's that like, who's going to be willing to take the time to fight
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the battle? Because it is a battle.
Yeah. Because it's so prevalent right now. And I'm convicted by it. Yeah, me too.
Well, I think to be honest with you, I think that's a great place to end.
And I think we should encourage the kings listening right here that to take
this admonition encouragement to shut off the social media for a day or for
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whatever it is and to seek God.
I think he really wants to give out treasures right now and to just really sacrifice
some time because he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
And your creativity will flow, your spontaneous will flow, your prophetic will
flow, all from him and spending time with him.
Because at the end of the day, music, worship, everything, it's all a vehicle
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to connect to his heart and spend time with him. And so it's all about Jesus.
And that's the parts that we're so attracted to. And when I'm looking for worship
leading, when I'm looking for worship music, I'm looking for authentic connection
and something that's going to help me connect.
And you can tell when someone has connected and is writing from or singing from that place.
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There's just such a weight, you know, and that takes time.
And it takes that, like, again, those treasures, those moments.
And so I think he's worth it.
And yeah, I'm convicted. So anyway, pray for us. All right. Father, we thank you for today.
And thank you that you don't hide things from us. you hide it for us because
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you value us as kings and queens and that there's matters to be searched out.
There's the depths of your heart that you're willing to reveal and waiting to reveal to us.
Maybe we have those mindsets of treasure hunters or diamond hunters or whatever
that is, and that we'd be willing to go to the deep recesses of the realities
of our own hearts and into the deep recesses of your own heart as well.
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And give us the courage and the grace to do so, and be willing to go deep with
you. In Jesus' name, amen.
The world can never pass away, oh Jesus, I'm your man.
Nice timing. There you go. Welcome to the Song Lab Podcast.
Welcome. This is Michael and Meredith Malden where we discuss all things worship, music,
(00:20):
creativity, arts, family, and our desire and hope is that we inspire you and
equip you to create with God and transform the world around you and make it
look more like heaven on earth. Yes. Amen.
It's been a while since we've been on. It has. It's been a little bit,
which is sad, but we're glad we're now here. It's just you and I today.
(00:41):
It's the dynamic duo. Yeah. We're talking about spontaneous and prophetic worship. We are.
But right before that, But we've been married for 19 years. I just want to say
that off the bat. That's a big deal. It is a big deal. We just had our anniversary.
Got to celebrate 19 years, reminisce.
Doesn't feel like 19 years. It doesn't. And you like me even more today than
(01:04):
when we got married. It's real.
That's a good thing. I hope you like me too. I do too. All right.
So spontaneous and prophetic worship. Yes.
I think that- And studying this for the last 18 years, really,
on a journey after worship.
And the Lord woke you up one day on it's all about worship and we have just
been going after the last 18 years or so. What does it look like to worship God?
(01:28):
And so one of the things we wanted to talk about today is spontaneous and prophetic
worship because it's become very normal in most of the circles that that's a norm.
I mean, not all circles, but it's become very popular and accepted.
But I'd say really it's only been kind of explored, explored, not explored.
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I mean, obviously tequila, we could talk about that a little bit.
Well, we have to talk about tequila when you talk about, not tequila,
tequila when we're discussing prophetic worship or spontaneous worship.
And I think it's important to discuss like, okay, well, what is it? Why is it important?
And what is it not? What is it not? Yeah. And why is it powerful?
And why is sometimes it not powerful?
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So why don't you begin with your journey of understanding this and stepping into it.
I know for you, you were kind of thrown into the deep end when we were at a church in Denton.
And a lot of times they would prophesy from the pulpit and then right afterwards
go, okay, now Meredith's going to sing a prophetic song over the body.
And you're just thrown on the spot and you'd have to just come up with a song that was revelatory.
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It rhymed, it had rhythm and was good.
Yes, I did get thrown out in the deep end. It was is the best, hardest.
It was an awesome training ground season for sure, where I got to learn a lot
about that and see that it was some part of worship and part of,
you know, testing it out.
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I failed a lot, you know, in that season as well.
To back up a little bit on that, like all I'd known before that was just,
you know, just to sing a song in church. You know, it was more of a performance.
God rocked me. And to really understand what worship was after we got married
and we were in Jerusalem Jerusalem and kind of had an encounter.
We talked about that in previous episodes.
(03:17):
But then getting into a church where they really honored and paved the way in
the prophetic and spontaneous worship, it was a whole new world for me and a whole new realm.
And not knowing what that really meant, but being willing to dive in,
it was very scary, honestly.
Because, I mean, first of all, they were a lot older and more experienced than that.
(03:39):
And I'm brand new to it and not sure exactly what I'm doing,
but it was just learning to really tune into what the Lord was saying,
trusting when I would get called out to sing that the Lord was,
that I, that they were seeing something and then I need to, to step out in faith
and believe in their faith.
Even if I didn't have anything in that moment to step in, in their faith,
(04:01):
that they're seeing something and, and, and sing what the Lord is saying,
you know, and that's scary ground.
You have to trust, Trust in the people that are around you and trust that God's
going to meet you in the middle of it, you know? Yeah.
I would say that some of the most powerful times we've had in worship have been
these moments that were spontaneous, off-the-cuff, prophetic,
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however you want to define that.
I think we can get into that in a minute, but why do you think those moments are so powerful?
I think you can't be dependent on yourself. It's like, it's not scripted. It's not safe.
You can mess up. And it's like God's strength is perfected in our weakness and our dependence.
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And I think with spontaneous and prophetic worship, it's dependent on hearing
and being a vessel to be flown, I mean, flown through, I guess, a flow through.
And so spontaneous worship and prophetic worship is supposed to be connected
to hearing what he's doing or saying in the room or what the Lord is saying
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or what he's highlighting, an aspect of himself,
and then singing that out.
Well, why is that more scary?
Why is that more like, it takes a risk. It takes more faith. You can mess up.
It can, what if it flops? What if it's not God? You know, all those things are in there.
So I think with risk, when you step out, the Lord has a way of like meeting you.
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And in those moments, those are so powerful because they're not necessarily
dependent on you and your gift, you know, and what you can do.
It's like you have to be dependent.
It's true. I mean, I've been around people who are not that talented singers
that will step out into this and you'll sense the presence of God show up in the room in a strong way.
And that singer is not that great, right? And so it's not contingent upon the gift oftentimes.
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No, because it takes so much faith and God is attracted to faith.
He loves when we will step out in faith.
And so- Yeah, so Psalm 22, right? God dwells in the praises of his people.
And that word for praise is tehillah.
And many interpret that as that spontaneous song of the heart.
And there's something about that that God really is attracted to because I think
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there's an authenticity in that moment and you're really trying to make a connection,
an authentic connection in the moment as opposed to a song that's already pre-written.
You can kind of do, you can do rote, right? Where your heart can be disconnected from it sometimes.
But you can also take a song that's already been written and pull it into that
moment and where it's fresh and new in that moment and it can be just the same
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as a spontaneous, prophetic moment.
And even though it's a written song. So I think there's sometimes a stigma around,
well, if it has to be spontaneous, it has to be created right in the moment.
But there's a scripture that says the scribes of the kingdom bring forth what
is new and what is old out of the treasures of the kingdom, right?
And so I think it's in those moments sometimes pulling in the old into the new.
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But there's something real significant about that where the Lord really does
honor those moments and show up in a significant way.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think it's interesting because it's really gotten popular over the last...
You know, seven to 10 years, I would say, where it's like, oh,
you see it and it's normalized.
But I feel like there's always been pioneers, you know, that have been doing this.
But I think for a long time, it wasn't, you know, like accepted or people didn't
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know about it and they didn't really do it.
But obviously it's ancient if the word tehillah actually means that.
So David, King David would walk in tehillah praise.
I mean, it was that one of his, I mean, I'd have to look it up.
Psalm 22, he wrote that one. Yeah. So he actually understood tehillah the praise,
the spontaneous combustion of the heart when you're just overwhelmed with love
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or affection or praise, and it just can't be contained and you have to let it out.
You know, what's interesting is we, I remember we got to meet with a producer
in Hollywood who produces for all these big, big secular artists.
And he was so gifted in his craft. And I
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would would watch what he would do and he was a pastor's kid
and i would watch him create in the studio and i knew he understood tequila
because he was bringing in these beats and these rhythms that were just so spontaneous
in the moment and it scared me a little bit because i was like man the enemy's
paying a lot of money for this you know and and these where there's been these secular.
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Lyrics attached to something that's godly it's kind of a scary thing and and
i asked him one one time I go, what are you doing when you create?
And he goes, it's tequila.
He actually understood it. Totally understood it.
So within that, you're saying like taking something of God's,
but then putting something that's not of God.
Yeah. There's a mixture within that. It's almost like a prostituted thing.
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It really grieved me because I was like, man, what he's doing is made for the
church, but the world values his gift more than the church does.
Or maybe there's not a space for him in the church because he's so creative.
And people have to earn a living with their gift, and oftentimes it's hard to
do that in a church if you're a musician.
I mean, how do you feel about that? You're using your gift in a secular space.
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Yeah, no, I think it's a really good question. It's interesting because I think
I have a little bit of a two-sided feeling on it, because there is something
different when the Lord gives you something and He's on it.
I think I've told a story, and I don't know if I've told it on this or not,
but it's worth telling again.
But I was talking about how we as believers should be creating the pop songs
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of the world because we have life and we have God.
And even if we're not saying anything about God in those moments,
that it carries God because he lives in me.
And I was saying that one time, and this kid was telling me,
he was like, man, I was suicidal. I was depressed.
And he goes, but I would listen to this one song. It was just an instrumental.
I would listen to it. And he goes, it would just get me through the night.
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To not commit suicide. Wow.
And he goes later on, he got saved, delivered all the things.
And he came back and he went and found that band one day and realized they were all believers.
Something in that music, even though it wasn't saying Jesus,
though it wasn't doing anything.
It was giving them life. It was giving him enough life just to make it through
the night to give him hope.
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That's great perspective. And so I'm like, sometimes within that, I'm like, yes.
But then I do think that the enemy sometimes uses that and is like,
yep, I'm going to take that And I'm going to put my nasty lyrics that are,
you know, that are death and, you know, just, it's just like hate or perversion or whatever it is.
And, and I'm going to put that with music that's meant for life and godliness.
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And it just feels like, it's like you get to the beat and you're just like, what am I singing?
And then there's just this weird tornness with it, you know?
Yeah. There's not, there's not a spiritual prosody.
There's not a spiritual prosody. Oh, I'm going to teach that. Okay.
Prosody. We teach that at Song Lab a lot. Prosody is when the music and what you're saying match.
It's saying the same thing, there's unity within it.
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But it's still right. For some reason, even if it's not spiritual prosody,
there's still an attraction to the music.
You can't say that the pop music out there or whatever's out there isn't being
listened to because it is. Of course, it's being listened to way more than version music. Way more.
So it's an interesting dynamic.
But back to spontaneous and prophetic worship where there's that creativity
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where you get to explore, you know, the Lord and write and sing from that place.
Like, I feel like the church has really started to step into it,
but I think that there's a lot of questions within it.
What are the questions? What's the difference between spontaneous and prophetic?
I think. How do you do it? I don't necessarily know that. Well,
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maybe spontaneous and prophetic. maybe that is a really good question.
I think it's the, how do you do it? What is spontaneous and prophetic?
Cause I don't think a lot of times right now, what I've seen in some churches
that are trying to step into that, cause I see it's popular is they're just
going to repeat a phrase over and over again.
And I don't think that they know why they're repeating a phrase over and over
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again. It's just like, well, that's popular. And so here's the line that whatever.
And so we're just going to repeat it. And everyone's kind of like,
why are we repeating this song over and over again.
And it's not meant because you're supposed to just repeat something for the sake of repeating it.
I think when you really get an understanding of it, you're searching in worship
to connect with his heart and what he's saying,
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that sometimes you're listening for the faith on a song or something to stick
out because that means God wants to take you deeper into something that he's saying within that,
an aspect of his heart or something that he's doing in the room or how he's revealing himself.
So maybe like what you're doing in that moment, you're somewhat of a treasure
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hunter in the spirit where in the context of the song, it's really like a train
track that's leading you in a direction.
And then maybe as the Lord highlights something, there's like a right turn to
take, but it takes faith to take that right turn to get off that track onto
another track because you don't know where you're going.
But the invitation from God is to take you into a deeper revelation of his heart,
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his character, and his nature. And if you're willing to go there,
man, you can go on this beautiful journey with God because in the end,
worship is meant for our heart to connect.
Like we're supposed to connect our hearts, you know, and sometimes we can do that within the song.
Sometimes the song just is highlighted itself and you don't need anything else,
but there's other times that there's like something that he's highlighting.
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He's like, there's more here in me.
I'm wanting to do something. And so you are kind of like, I've heard it said,
you're kind of fishing in some ways.
There is a little bit of a like you're you're treasure hunting we're gonna look
here a little bit okay no that's it there's there's nothing more here okay well
let's let's go here a little while and see if see if the lord's speaking on
this because you know you don't always know,
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you know and that's where it's scary it's because you know you can step out and,
and and go into this spontaneous moment you know spontaneous out of the out
of the playbook off the playbook you know where it's scary and it might totally
not work but it's also in those those vulnerable places that the Lord shows
up and it's just amazing.
So if you learn to create space.
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For the listening, also create a safe place where you don't get shamed for stepping out.
And that's a real thing. Sometimes- What does that look like practically?
What does it look like to create a safe space?
You're talking about like in a prayer room or in a living room or in your private
times with friends, practice rehearsals. What does that look like?
Yeah. Or even on Sundays, like how do you create a safe place to where you can practice?
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But you You also, if you, if it's like, well, we tried it and it didn't work,
you know, you're not going to be like, don't ever step out again. Yeah.
You know, I think you have to celebrate the risk, but I think the biggest key to that,
is going to be a hundred percent debriefing, having a culture where you're afterwards
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talking about what the Lord do, you know, what'd you see?
Was he, what was he on? What did you feel in that moment? you
know and why did the room explode when we were singing this like what what were
we singing what was god doing that that happened and when we start to explore
what the lord was doing in those things and to know his heart and what moves
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his heart you know because it's not a formula.
God is not a our relationship is not a formula there's things that you know
he likes tools there's tools and there's things that i know you like and there's
things that you know as a a relationship, you know, that I know,
but it's not like just because you like something, you want that every time, every,
you know, the same way, you know, like everybody, this is where it's relational.
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And so I think creating a place where you're allowed to like explore a little
bit, you know, and then being able to debrief afterwards and say,
okay, what did God do here?
And good job stepping out. Maybe we went a little, maybe we went a little long.
We had to learn that at the other room, big time.
We, we did a big pendulum swing, honestly, as we were learning.
We went from an hour of worship, which was what we always did.
(16:09):
And we would pick six songs.
Believe it or not, early days up a room, we had six songs that we would pick.
And I remember Miller one day, and you would say the same thing.
You guys were like, okay, what if you just do four songs and leave some room?
And I was scared. Why was I scared? I was scared because I was like,
what if I don't have anything that I'm going to be left on the stage standing
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there not knowing what to do?
Yeah, it's real fear. I mean, it's a thing. I think people forget the fear part of it.
It's like, what if he doesn't show up? Then I'm going to be standing here by
myself looking like I don't know what to do.
You know, so there was that. But it was like crazy that I was like,
okay. I literally told Miller one time, he's like, what have you tried for something?
I was like, okay, but if I got nothing, you better get up there and pray or do something.
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Don't leave me up there. Don't leave me.
But God showed up and he met us, you know. But then we ended up pendulum swinging,
which is hilarious, where we'd sing a half a song.
For 45 minutes? For 45 minutes. And it would be like, can we move on?
Can we squeeze the juice out of that thing? Whoa, we just like,
yeah, there was nothing left.
We'd always be like, we squeezed the juice out of that. There's no more juice in that.
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And so it's a part of what we had to learn.
But creating the space allowed for us to try to connect our hearts.
And again, like even in John 4, it talks about like, it's not about the place.
You know, when he's talking about insight to the father's heart on worship,
he's like, I'm seeking worshipers.
It's no longer about the place. It's about the heart.
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And so within that, then spontaneous and prophetic worship are really meant
to get to our heart, to get us to connect our hearts.
And sometimes in the song we can, and then sometimes it's in the space of like
the Lord kind of revealing himself that we can really, truly off the page,
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get our heart connected.
And I think in the end, if we can keep that as the point, as its heart connection,
and it's meant to explore God's heart and open our heart to him,
then it becomes less complicated.
Because I think it can get very complicated, prophetic and spontaneous worship, if it's expected.
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I remember, again, early days when we were really exploring that in the upper room.
And I remember one of my worship leaders coming up to me and it was when the
cameras, we finally started doing cameras.
We started, you know, so people were watching and it was like,
oh my gosh, our upper room was exploding.
And there was a lot of pressure like, oh, I have to figure out how to be spontaneous.
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I have to figure out how to be prophetic.
I don't, what if I don't know where to go and where to take us and how do I plan songs for that?
And I was like, you know what? I don't want you to try to figure out that.
I want you to just pick songs that open your heart to the Lord.
Get off the pressure of trying to figure out how to be spontaneous and how to
be prophetic and pick songs right now that you just open your heart and take off the pressure.
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And then it, and it was like, all of a sudden that, that words of leaders like
took a deep breath. I'm like, Oh, okay.
I can do that. I can do that. You know? And I think sometimes within spontaneous
and prophetic, you know, you feel like you've got this pressure that you need to.
And, and I think in those cultures, the advice that I would give is like in
the cultures where where there's a lot of pressure for it, you need to like
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be able to take your pressure off.
And if you just sing through your song list, that's okay. Yeah.
And give permission to do that.
But I think in the churches that are like, we only sing through our song list,
you know, I'd like, I'd challenge to leave a little bit of room. Yeah.
To leave space. Is that scary a little bit? Yes.
Does it take bringing in your teaching your congregation to wait a little bit?
(19:47):
Like that's part of the process too.
I mean, I think also, also what would help fuel that for songwriters or singers,
musicians, is really spending a lot of time alone with the Lord because that
overflow will then spill out into those moments. Absolutely.
And I know, because I mean, I'm not a singer. I don't sing, but there's things
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that I'll be spending time with the Lord with.
And whatever theme it is, sometimes will pop up in you guys' worship.
And I know that then I can then get up and share and exhort the body through
the scripture, through the word, through something that the Lord has been speaking to me.
And I remember- So basically your alone time actually flows into the corporate
times. Totally. But if you don't have the alone time, it doesn't always flow. It totally does. No.
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And I know this is kind of funny because we're in the springtime,
but we just had St. Patrick's Day. I remember this moment where I was going
to a prayer set at 6 a.m. Oh, yeah.
And the night before I had gone to Dallas Mavericks game and they were giving
out free little bottles of Irish spring soap. Okay. And-
And it was sitting next to my bed or sitting next to my shower that morning.
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And I was about to go to prayer.
And I felt like the Lord said, put that in your pocket, bring that with you.
And I was like, bring a little bottle of Irish spring soap to prayer.
Okay, I'll do it. So I stick it in my pocket.
And when we get there, there was a group that was about to go on a missions
trip to Ireland that morning.
And so they were praying over them. And the first prayer that's prayed,
they're like, Lord, I pray that you spring this group forward into Ireland.
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Let this be an Irish spring for them, you know? And I was like, no way.
And I go, pull that out of my pocket. I go, here, the Lord told me to bring
this. You know, I pulled out a bottle of Irish spring soap.
And he had that group line up and I anointed them on their heads.
I anointed them with Irish spring soap. They were fresh and clean.
But it's such a literal picture of the Lord speaking. Yeah. And bringing that prophetic moment in.
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But it took the obedience and then being willing to listen and step out.
But it gave that team faith.
It did. That the Lord was really sending them in there and he wanted to anoint
them for what they were about to go do.
And that's in the end what that creates is this faith that God's with you.
He's speaking and he's in the details.
Totally. And that's my favorite part, you know, like following the Lord,
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knowing it's like when he gives you these little things of like,
I'm with you. I'm in the details of it. Yeah.
And he loves to do that even within the worship.
But yeah, I think that's a huge part of it is like, I remember when we were
really doing a lot of spontaneous worship and I was like, okay,
Lord, how do I do this? he was like, sing your prayers at home.
I was home with kids that were little teeny tiny ones, you know,
so they didn't talk and need my time as much, but I would just go around and
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I would sing out my prayers.
And, and that was amazing training ground for me just to just get used to communing
in a way that was like to God in song, which you think Psalms is all songs.
It's all the whole book of songs, you know, and then you got song of songs and
then there's all kinds of songs songs within the Bible, you know, throughout.
(22:40):
So it's that it's, it's, you know, it's a book of songs. So it's just me learning
how to like find melodies to my own prayers.
And explore that. And, you know, that's where some of my songs were written
from and then also flowed into the spontaneous worship. So it's beautiful.
I think also just play off one more thing on the spontaneous worship was what
(23:01):
you just said about like your time with the Lord flowed into your corporate times.
And I find that when with songwriting, you know, when you go into it,
like a lot of times people think songwriting is like a head thing.
Well, yeah, that's not spiritual that's not worship but actually
songwriting is a deep meditation of an
aspect of god explain that times so if
(23:24):
you're like writing a song about i mean just
for the sake of whatever the goodness of god you're going deep into like why
is he good how has he been good to me what do i want to say here what are the
scriptures about goodness you know the goodness of who he is and so all of a
sudden it's like you spent two and a half hours on the goodness On the goodness of God,
(23:45):
you know, and then in your like prayer sets or your worship times,
if you ever sing something, that's a goodness of God.
Now you have this whole well of things you have dug up about the goodness of
God that flows into your spontaneous worship.
Because now it's like, it just brings you to that place again.
Even like, oh yeah. Cause you're going to like, when you sing it,
when you've dug in writing a song, when you sing, oh, I love the goodness of God.
(24:09):
Now you have all this stuff that you mean when you're singing the goodness of God.
Now you actually have pictures or stories or whatever else. You may be saying
a very simple line, but there's a lot of depth behind it because you really dug there.
So I think your spontaneous is absolutely influenced by your intimate time with
(24:30):
the Lord, your one-on-one time,
your creative process, your depth, your deep thinking and going there, which, yeah.
Which is a whole nother topic. It's a whole nother topic that what keeps us from now.
Well, I think you should bring up a point of this.
You told me last night, you go, I actually think the word of the Lord is rare
(24:52):
right now. And why do you think that?
I think we've got a lot of stuff out there that's very prophetic right now in
general, people putting out prophetic words.
And I'm not going to say anything regarding that. I'm going to honor that's
between everybody and between the Lord and them.
And I think there's some good encouragement and all that kind of stuff within that.
But I think because of social media, because of our phones, because of all that,
(25:16):
we've become a very shallow people.
We immediately have a second and we pick up our phones.
And we're consuming. And we're constantly consuming and we're not taking the
time to go deep in creativity.
Creativity takes time. Deep in creativity or just deep with God in general.
Yeah. I think there's actually a massive opportunity right now.
I want to say like, okay, I think the word of the Lord is rare because I think
(25:39):
there's There's very few that are actually taking the time that it actually
takes because time with God is costly. It's very costly.
He doesn't just, I mean, yes, he does speak like little things here and there
and like whatever else, but for real depths of things that he really wants to
speak, like, I feel like there's a cost.
Like, are you really willing to go there? Do you really want it that bad?
He wants to give it to those who want it. It says like, keep seeking, like keep asking.
(26:02):
It's like this process of digging. How do you find a diamond? It's not on the surface.
It's, you know, you've got to dig. You've got to dig. And it's like the bigger
truths, the bigger, the most beautiful things often have the biggest cost.
And I don't think God sells cheap when it comes to things he wants to truly give that are valuable.
He doesn't want to just give it to you if you don't value it.
(26:23):
Totally. I remember walking into the museum in Houston and they have this room.
It's all these beautiful crystals and geodes and jewels and all this stuff from
around the world. And I'm like, Like, who finds this stuff?
Look at the beauty that's in the earth, but who's willing to find it?
And it just hit me. I felt like God was like, this is the same way with me.
(26:43):
Who's willing to search the depths of my heart? Because within there is treasures
for the world to bring forth, to beautify the world. Yeah.
And I agree with you. I think we're in a time where we're in a consumer mindset
versus a creative and also willing to just sacrifice everything.
Our headspace and heart space just to be with Jesus. To just be with Jesus.
(27:04):
And I think, and because I think there's such a battle for it,
I think if there is that fight to do that, there's a real opportunity.
And real reward. And a real reward. And I'm convicted of the same thing.
He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, right?
And he says, it's the honor of kings to seek it out.
It is. So it's that like, who's going to be willing to take the time to fight
(27:27):
the battle? Because it is a battle.
Yeah. Because it's so prevalent right now. And I'm convicted by it. Yeah, me too.
Well, I think to be honest with you, I think that's a great place to end.
And I think we should encourage the kings listening right here that to take
this admonition encouragement to shut off the social media for a day or for
(27:47):
whatever it is and to seek God.
I think he really wants to give out treasures right now and to just really sacrifice
some time because he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
And your creativity will flow, your spontaneous will flow, your prophetic will
flow, all from him and spending time with him.
Because at the end of the day, music, worship, everything, it's all a vehicle
(28:10):
to connect to his heart and spend time with him. And so it's all about Jesus.
And that's the parts that we're so attracted to. And when I'm looking for worship
leading, when I'm looking for worship music, I'm looking for authentic connection
and something that's going to help me connect.
And you can tell when someone has connected and is writing from or singing from that place.
(28:36):
There's just such a weight, you know, and that takes time.
And it takes that, like, again, those treasures, those moments.
And so I think he's worth it.
And yeah, I'm convicted. So anyway, pray for us. All right. Father, we thank you for today.
And thank you that you don't hide things from us. you hide it for us because
(28:57):
you value us as kings and queens and that there's matters to be searched out.
There's the depths of your heart that you're willing to reveal and waiting to reveal to us.
Maybe we have those mindsets of treasure hunters or diamond hunters or whatever
that is, and that we'd be willing to go to the deep recesses of the realities
of our own hearts and into the deep recesses of your own heart as well.
(29:20):
And give us the courage and the grace to do so, and be willing to go deep with
you. In Jesus' name, amen.
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