Worship, as defined by Richard
Foster, is “the human response to the divine initiative.” It is “kindled within us only when the Spirit
of God touches our human spirit.” To me,
just these sentences alone are enough to be radical. Instead of a worship that is ritualistic or
simply going through the motions, true worship is the response to God’s
attributes becoming known to my human mind.
It is forgetting about all of the lists that I make in my mind, even for
a moment, and reflecting and then acting upon God’s ever-present Spirit.
As you all can probably tell, I have
been thinking a lot about worship this week.
It is the first discipline that my class and I are going through. When I first thought about the assignment for
this week, I have to admit that I thought that it would be so easy. However, God really showed me how much I can
fail in something that I think about so much.
This week, it was my plan to really focus on God throughout my day and
be willing to stop what I was doing so as to let God transform me through my
actions. In some ways, this went
well. In other ways, I find myself
begging for the grace of God as I was confronted with an onset of exhaustion
and mindless business that forced my focus away from God.
Most of this week, I felt like the
stapler that I use in the Business Office where I work. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love this stapler
because of the imperfections and frustrations that it applies to my life – I’m
also not using this blog to try to convince anyone to buy me a new stapler. This stapler has a habit of looking so
perfect on the outside; but when I go to connect two pieces of paper together, the
stapler will literally fall off of the hinges that hold the entire thing
together. I was reminded of this stapler whenever I would try to find a spot in
my day to sit in silence and wait for God’s Spirit to invoke a response. Instead of finding a peace, somehow I felt
jarred from my hinges with more work and stress. It was only after stumbling through each bit
of business and exhaustion that I would look back and realize that it was God
who was providing me with the energy to keep going. Sometimes, it feels like I can only praise
God when the stresses that are placed upon me are temporarily lifted. Anyone else?
However, during the frantic business
of last week, I also found times where God reminded me of who I am and why I
need to spend time with Him. Before I go
to bed each night, I always read a couple of chapters in my Bible. For the last several weeks, I have been
reading through the Psalms. A common
theme that I continued to read over and over again was the statement, “Praise
the LORD.” Whenever I would read that,
there would always be a peace that would wash over me. I guess you could say that God was putting me
back onto my hinges, just like after each time I attempt to staple
something. I also felt God’s Spirit
touching my own when I was at a Bible study and we were all going around in a
circle and praying for each other. The
power of prayer is overwhelming and reminded me, again, that God was putting me
back on my hinges again.
I guess that is just how life is
sometimes. God can be found in the midst
of my worries, fears, and stress, but only after I actually stop and let Him
put me back onto my hinges again.
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