When we worship….we place God on His throne. (Paraphrased)
For a great part of my life the word “worship” meant the aggregate of many components that when combined created a church service, aggregate meaning a whole formed by combining several elements. Church was a worship service combining prayer, music, and a spiritual message. I attended regularly each Sunday morning and evening while growing up and was also there on Wednesday evenings. As I look back, I wonder just how “present” I really was. Oh, I was definitely invested in the special programs and cantatas that surrounded the holidays. I put in the required study time to be baptized and accepted into membership and, yes, many of the scriptures that I memorized are still lying deep in the hollows of my brain. I recognize them when they are read or spoken but I am not always consciously aware of them.
So when did the word “worship” begin to creep into my soul and why have I recently become conflicted about its true meaning?
The dictionary identifies worship as “the feeling or expression of reverence or adoration for a deity.” That’s pretty straightforward. We feel reverence for a deity and express that reverence through our words and actions.
Worship is the “thank you” that refuses to be silenced.
In recent years, we have come to identify the musical portions of our church services as worship or praise and worship. But don’t we also show our reverence through prayer and study of His Word? The thing is….I don’t see worship as just a Sunday thing. I believe that every word or action expressed throughout each and every day is worship if it honors our God.
Worship is when you’re aware that what you’ve been given is far greater than what you can give.
When I wake to a brilliant sunrise or witness an evening panorama of blazing colors, I know that they are gifts from my Creator and that is worship. When I coax a tiny new seedling through the crust of earth, my smile is worship to the one I walk with every day. When I wander beside a meandering stream, witness the power of an ocean wave, when I stand atop a mountain where I can see for miles or am enveloped in a valley rich with foliage and teeming with wildlife, my heart is thankful to be alive and that is worship because God made it all.
Many years ago, on the day Ken and I said our marriage vows before God and all our witnesses, my heart thanked God for this perfect life partner he had brought into my life and that was certainly worship. When over the years I’ve looked into the eyes of my newborn children and grandchildren and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are the greatest gifts our God can give to us, my eyes filled with mist and that also was worship.
Worship is a voluntary act of gratitude offered by the saved to the Savior, by the healed to the Healer, and by the delivered to the Deliverer.
Being thankful every day for the breath of life, for family and friends, for the biggest of celebrations to the smallest of everyday blessings, that is worship, and our God smiles at every moment of gratitude that we return to Him. So let’s all get busy and WORSHIP!
All quotes are from The Eye of the Storm and Unshakeable Hope by Max Lucado
