Wednesday, May 14, 2014

I’m not ready for this yet.


Tommy opened his birthday present, took one glance, figured out what it was there hiding under all the tissue and pronounced, “I’m not ready for this yet.”  Roller blades, that is what he got for his
sixth birthday and what was under the tissue.  The amazing thing is that within ten minutes he was skating, albeit very carefully, from one end of the family room to the other.
In Luke 25: 50-54 Luke records the scene of Christ’s ascension to heaven and His final blessing.  Then we see that immediately his disciples worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, worshipping Him and praising God.  Now, I am not so sure that I would not be a lot like Tommy.  I am not sure that worship would have come all that easily.  Instead, I probably would have said, “I’m not ready for this yet.”
I am still studying worship, and my definition today, note that I say today, is worship is acknowledging Who God is.  I also think that when you acknowledge God for Who He is, you would naturally be filled with a desire to give Him your praise and love and affection, and your life.
OK, again I am revealing my own weakness and being honest, I have gone to church many times and not worshipped, and through no fault of the pastor or worship team.  I have gone to church distracted, thinking about the chores ahead of me for the day or about someone I would see, or the news.  The point is I did not go into the worship service acknowledging Who God is, and Who He is to me.  I wasn’t ready yet for worship, and I should have been.

And I think this is the place to say that church is not the only place for worship.  My life ought to be filled with worship; everything I do ought to flow out of a constant and cultivated awareness of Who God is and how I am related to Him. Consider the difference it would make if we developed the practice of viewing all of life through the lens of the presence of God and His love for us. We would remember that we are loved, that we were so loved that Christ gave His life for us, to redeem us from our sin…and that would not be a well-worn cliché but a vital life-changing truth.
We would remember that He NEVER leaves us, nor forsakes us.  We would remember that there is no temptation  we might face that He has not already filtered making sure that we, God and me, would make it through is a way that would bring Him glory…and that would bring us joy.

All of that to say, I am sure there will be moments when I will say “I am not ready for that.” However, give me a few minutes, and I will remember that as I worship God, acknowledging Who He is and how we are related, I really am ready, or it would not be happening.
image from www.skatehut.co.uk

 

 

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