Worship

When do you worship?  On Sundays?  Whenever you go to church?  When you read the Bible?  When you work?  When you are blessed?  When you meet tragedy?  What does worship mean to you?  Worship is typically defined as reverent love or devotion, respect, admiration, or worthiness...  But what does it mean to you...and more importantly what does it mean to God?  The scriptures call us to worship in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:24).  It is an action we are to DO to and for God.

 

When I think of worship, I most often think music sung to God in or out of church to proclaim our love for Him and what He's done for us.  You might agree...this is a Christian's basic understanding of the act of worship...but I think God asks more than that of us...  If worship is reverent love, devotion, respect, etc. then it should reflect more than just our singing talents, right?  Worship should be in the WAY we sing, the WAY we work, play, eat, live, laugh, and cry.  Again, you probably agree...though I think we all need a reminder of this every now and then...but that last part is what gets me...to worship even when we are brought to tears (whether in joy or sadness)!

 

Get this verse about David's worship after the death of his son:

¹⁹ When David saw that his servants were whispering to each other, he guessed that the baby was dead. So he asked his servants, "Is the baby dead?"  "He is dead," they replied.  ²⁰ Then David got up from the ground. He washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, went to the LORD's house, and worshiped. Then he went home and requested [something to eat]. So they served him food, and he ate.  ²¹ His servants asked him, "What did you just do? While the baby was alive, you fasted and wept, but when he died, you got up and ate food."  ²² He answered, "While the baby was alive, I fasted and wept because I thought, 'Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let him live.' ²³ But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I'll go to him, but he will never return to me." (2 Samuel 12:19-23)

Even on one of the most difficult and sad days of David's life, he got up, brushed himself off, WENT to God, and worshiped!  My point is this, if we are to worship in spirit and in truth, then even our pained, anguished cries to God should be worshipful.  What does that look like?  I think the answer to that is in the Psalms...  I stumbled accross these the other day:

"O LORD, I call upon you; hasten to me! Give ear to my voice when I call to you!" (Psalm 141:1)

 

and

 

"Why, O LORD, do you stand far away?  Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" (Psalm 10:1)

...There are so many examples of worship hidden away in the plain sight of scripture, all we need to do is open it up!  Even the writing of the Word was worshipful!  Jesus' cry out to God before the Crucifixion was worshipful.  I know it's easy to worship in joy and through blessing...but I think we can experience something SO much greater when we worship through the darknesses of life!

Family

Two weekends ago, and again this weekend, I got to spend some time with my grandparents!  It was so wonderful to see them and catch up!  It reminded me how important and wonderful family can be...and how wonderful God is to have created the family bond and then created the picture perfect relationship for us to follow (God the father, Christ the son, and the Holy Spirit) and describes our roles perfectly in Ephesians 5-6.

I love that I have my family and that they are there for me when I need them!  What's even better, is that when I don't have them, I have God.  And in truth, He is all I need!  The perfect father, the perfect son, the perfect brother, mother, sister, friend, grandparent...  God can be our everything, and longs to be, if we let Him!  When My life runs a mile a minute, I KNOW that I can find rest, comfort, and encouragement in God alone.  (Psalm 62)

What a blessing.  It seems we focus on family so much more during the "Holidays," beginning after Halloween and all the way through the New Year...There are parties and presents and conversation and love, hugs, kisses, hellos, and goodbyes--then the holidays pass and so do many of our longings for "family time"...  In many ways this imitates our "family time" with God...doesn't it?  We get to the "holidays" in life (Sundays, times of joy, times of sorrow, times of need, times of hurt) when we feel we need our God (our family) and we call to him, cry out to him...and many other things.  And He's always there for us!  Then, after he's filled us up, we begin to feel we don't need Him anymore, we can carry on for ourselves for a while, and we leave Him...BUT He never leaves US!!!  We need to give God more than "family time"...God deserves ALL our time, and we need Him to help us through the battle of life on earth.  Remember to keep God with you always, call out to Him every moment of every day!  There is nothing we can do on our own, there is nothing we CAN'T do WITH God at our side!  Praise Him for that!

Romans 12:2

Have you ever wondered (and maybe you have) how the "word" of the "Lord" fits so well into the "world"?  I noticed this the other day...If we combine the "word" and the "Lord" we see "worLd"...Do you see?  This is SUCH a beautiful revelation to me!  The Lord puts himself smack-dab in the middle of the worLd...which is EXACTLY where He wants US to be...and the most beautiful part about it is that He's right there with us!  In the middle.  All the time.

Friends, we don't have to do this world alone, we have the power and might of the Lord of the Universe within us!  So...be in the world not of the world...short and sweet.  Because without the Lord we have no worLd (He created it, you know) and without the Lord we have no influence in the worLd.

AND...The best and surest way for us to stay IN the worLd and not OF the world is to stay not just IN the word but OF the word of the Lord!  I pray this is as impactful on you today as it was on my whole week!  The Lord just blows me away!  I love it!!!

It's Growth.

God has an answer for everything, doesn't he?  I have found that His answer is almost never the same as mine, or the one I think He should have, or ever in a timeframe that I think is appropriate, sometimes the answer doesn't even feel like an answer...BUT He is always right.

I am at a place in my life where I never thought (or hoped or dreamed) I would be...I didn't ask for it...or did I?  I wanted a new chapter.  I wanted an adveture.  I wanted to expeience God's presence in a new and meaningful way.  I wanted to gorw closer to Him and stronger in my faith.  ...I have gotten EXACTLY what I asked for...  just not the way I thought I would.  This life is much harder than the one I thought I was asking for...but it's fuller than ANY life I could have dreamed of!!!

This doesn't mean I don't question "why?", get frustrated, angry, depressed, feel lonely, forgotten, cast aside...  BUT when those feelings come, I am reminded by the comforting hand of MY Omnipotent God that I am where HE wants me to be...LEARNING what He wants me to learn.  Do I understand WHY?  HECK NO!  Will I ever understand?  Only God knows.  Am I happier than ever?  Yes.  Sure, I have down moments...moments when the Enemy seeps in like a dense fog attempting to suffocate my joy...but light is always stronger than darkness and GOD is always BY MY SIDE!!!  (Some days I need to remind myself of this more often than others)

So I wonder, dear friends, where are you on "your timeline?"  Have you gotten what you asked for in a way you never imagined?  Have you been derailed from your will only to be found in HIS?  Do you question "WHY?"  It's been my experience (thus far) that when we find ourselves asking "why?" (why me? why now? why this? why not?) God's brought us right where he wants us.  Think about it.  It's exciting.  It's painful.  It's growth.