HopeKids today. Felt very tired physically and mentally. But thank God for Joel, one of the HopeKids boys. Was lifting up my hands to worship God, when the worship leader asked us to lift our hands to the Lord.

Suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. Turned, and saw it was Joel praying for me. And he was grinning some more. Deeply touched. God used one of the most mischievous boys to minister mercy to me.

And I learnt once again that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. God can really work through the people whom we think are least able to minister to us.

I've been wondering too. Are we too concerned about exercising discipline in Hopekids Live? There's a balance, but I think the balance has to be more carefully done. Too often, we prefer the order - forgetting that one of the greatest obstacles to seeing children becoming eager to grow in Christ is the institution and enforcement of excessive forms.

Kids need boundaries, yes. But these boundaries shouldn't be a measure of how 'good' you are. They're meant to protect. Not as a measure of closeness to God. But to also teach them that God really loves them, no matter how bad they've been. But that also He wants to help them grow too.

Anyway, during worship, some of the kids were sitting down, fiddling and clambering onto the stage. It looked decidedly messy, the whole thing, to me.

Initially thought of asking them to stand properly to show respect for God. But this verse suddenly came to mind: "Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these."

And it struck me that the very fact that the boys were crawling onto the stage to get nearer to the action, is in itself a wonderful measure of how eager they are to worship God. And though the boys were easily distracted (as boys will always be), when they sang, they really sang sincerely.

"Here I am to worship

Here I am to bow down

Here I am to say that You're my God..."

When was the last time we were so eager to draw near to God in our hearts, that we would crawl onto the stage to listen to the songs and read the lyrics better?

God taught me what it really means to worship Him. Not to look at the outwards form, but the inward heart. The heart of worship.

Another thing too.

It's true that kids are very easily distracted when it comes to worship. They play with their paper planes, they disturb one another, they sit down and do stuff, and so on. They don't seem to be able to worship God very maturely.

But... I realised, we adults are often no different from the children when it comes to worshipping the Lord. What the kids are on the outside, we adults are on the inside. 

We may not fiddle with our handphones or PSPs, but haven't we fiddled with thoughts of work and games while worshipping the Lord? We may not poke or tickle or punch one another externally, but don't we get irritated with our brothers and sisters in our hearts while worshipping God? We are distracted by thoughts of ministry and worries and BGRs and so on on the inside, while we lift up our hands outwardly to the Lord.

It's not a condemnation of what we do. (I did all of the above while worshipping during adults service today. Haha...) It just goes to show that we adults have a lot of growing-up in our hearts to do... but God still delights in us little kids anyway.

May we learn to put aside our adult worries, and unashamedly clamber and crawl onto the stage too. So that we can be just a little closer to our heavenly Papa. And sing with all our hearts and gusto too:

"Here I am to worship

Here I am to bow down

Here I am to say that You're my God...

You're altogether lovely

Altogether worthy

Altogether wonderful to me..."

I don't think it was a coincidence that the same "Here I Am To Worship" song was played both in Hope Kids and Hope Adults services today. Think God wants to teach me something new about what it really means to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

And not to hinder the little ones too from coming to Him, no matter how noisy or messy or grubby they be. Because we are too.