Touch The Sky

So Hillsong United has a new album coming out in a few weeks.  My Instagram feed is full of updates about it and this morning I decided to see if anything from it had been released early on Spotify.  “Touch The Sky” is the only offering to be found there thus far and by the time I switched to bluetooth from my radio, the first line of the song that I caught was, “I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground.”

Oh, my heart be still.

There were the words I have been searching for having not so long ago begun a regular practice of kneeling.

A few months ago I started attending a new bible study ( which I coincidentally skipped this morning. . . gah).  The very first day the leader spoke about the importance of quiet times and she gave us a structure for how she does hers.  With two small boys, she has to be especially intentional about her quiet times, which often boil down to just a few silent minutes in the floor of her closet.  She retreats to her closet and hits her knees each and every morning before a word is spoken. When she has more time to devote to a more structured quiet time she begins those on her knees, too.

I’ve been a kneeler before, and have especially loved kneeling in church, back in the day when I was attending Episcopal and Anglican churches.  There was just something about doing that in a service that helped put me into a special mind frame.  Doing it at home though, had really just been relegated for those most desperate of situations. . . like that one time when my husband left me for another woman.  Let’s just say that was a season of frequent kneeling in my life.  Fortunately, there haven’t been very many more occasions when my knees NEEDED to hit the ground.

But hearing sweet Jennie, the bible study leader, talk about her quiet times motivated me.  If this would help me go deeper, then far be it for me to dismiss its’ value.

At the same time I was starting this new bible study, I was also in the process of repurposing a guest room into a multifunctional room where Jeff could have his race simulator and I could have a cozy space to read and write and pray and separate myself from the 3,000 tabs that are often occupying most of my brain.  After leaving bible study the following week, I ran into Target and got the biggest, cushiest navy blue pillow I could find (since my knees hate me and I knew they would require some buffering in order to play along well.)

It’s been a couple of months now and just this morning, I found myself on my big, cushy navy blue pillow, in my closet before the sun came up.  Just a quick moment of prayer before heading out the door to pound the pavement with my precious best friend who is in town this week with her family.  I hadn’t been on my knees since Monday morning and yesterday it’s absence was tangible.  I was on the the verge of tears much of the day, for no good reason, eventually realizing that I just missed my Jesus.

My knees, do indeed, NEED to hit the ground, even in the seasons with little to no desperation. Selah.

There are a few amazing lines in “Touch the Sky”.  The first one that tugged at my heart the moment the song came across my speakers, “I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground”, of course,  and then “I found my life when I laid it down”.

But the chorus. . . oh, the chorus. . .

Find me here at Your feet again
Everything I am, reaching out, I surrender
Come sweep me up in Your love again
And my soul will dance
On the wings of forever

That is it.  That surrender that happens when I’m on my knees.  Laying my life down, at His feet, is when He can sweep me up in His love and my soul can be free of all of the thoughts, feelings and happenings of my every day life.  This is the place where He takes all my cares and worries and relieves me of them.

When I’m on my knees. At His feet. I can touch the sky.

Yesterday, over on Momastery.com, Glennon Doyle Melton wrote about a little boy asking her a huge question, “Is God coming?”  I have felt her response so many times, but never been able to simplify the answer as beautifully as she did in response to that precious boy:

             “Ryan, I don’t know how you can know if God is here or not. But here’s what happens to me when I notice that God is with me. My hearts starts to feel bigger. It feels like it’s swelling up. It feels like it’s getting so big it might crawl up through my throat. Like right now, next to you—my heart feels huge. Like somebody pumped it full of air. I think this heart swelling is sometimes how God reminds me that God is with me.”

When I’m on my knees my heart starts to feel bigger.  It feels like it’s swelling up.  It feels like it’s getting so big it might crawl up through my throat. I feel like I can touch the sky.

And I find my life when I lay it down.

_______________________

Oh, and Hillsong performed “Touch The Sky” this morning on the Today Show.  You can watch along HERE.