The Truth About Worship

As I stood worshipping God during the church service last Sunday a thought occurred to me (besides wondering about the score of the Seahawks game). Why does God insist on our worship? Does he really need to have a whole planet full of creatures spending vast amounts of effort and time dreaming up ways to tell him how great he is? Doesn't he already know that? Is it a performance aspect of our love relationship where I worship and he smiles in acceptance so I work to acheive that smile?

The truth is that an experience needs words to wrap around it and make it complete and real. When our family moved across the country and stopped to actually see Mount Rushmore, we couldn't stop talking about it. Even as we drove away I continued to look back in awe and express my "wowness". Those words helped to wrap ourselves around the reality of what we had experienced.

We are to worship God not because his ego needs it, but because without worship, our experience and enjoyment of God are not complete. We worship God not so much because he needs it, but because I need it.

I need to worship because without it I can forget that I have a Big God beside me and live in fear. I need to worship because without it I can forget his calling and begin to live in a spirit of pre-occupation. I need to worship because without it I lose a sense of wonder and gratitude and plod through life with blinders on. I need to worship because my natural tendency is toward self-reliance and stubborn independence.

I need to worship in order to see reality through the God lense instead of my fear glasses.

Worship is so much more than singing in church on Sunday. It's a daily walk with God that sees God in life as bigger than life. It recognizes his presence, his touch, and his peace every moment of every day. This is what God-sensing is - seeing God in life and seeing life through God.

And my God is soooo big!