Discovering the Essence of Worship

I recently heard about a woman who bought a new car that was loaded with high-tech options. One day, it began raining as she drove the car downtown, so she turned a knob that she thought would start the windshield wipers. Instead a message flashed across the dash: "Drive car in 360 degree turn." The message instructed her to drive the car in a circle.

She had no idea what that meant, and so when she got home she read the car manual. She learned that while trying to turn on the windshield wipers she had accidentally turned off the internal compass, and the car had lost its sense of direction. To correct the problem, the car had to be driven in a full circle, pointed north, and then the compass had to be reset.

It's sort of like that with worship, which we are exploring this month. When we worship, we are resetting our internal compass. We establish "true north" in our soul, remembering who God is and what his truth proclaims.

My awakening to the importance and all-encompassing nature of worship may have been much like yours was (or will be): very gradual. For years-too many years-I was content to let my local church define "worship" for me, accepting worship as I observed it practiced by adults whom I held in high esteem.

What I learned from them was that the word worship refered almost exclusively to our weekly church services. There was a specific time and a place for worship: For us, it happened on Sundays, it happened from 11:00 a.m. to noon, and it happened in the "worship center."

As time passed, I became vaguely uneasy. Surely there had to be more to it than this.

Eventually God's patient and quickening Spirit moved me from a vague and passive acknowledgment of worship to a proactive pilgrimage of discovery. I began to explore worship in the Bible and to mull over the writing of others who had begun this same quest long before me.

The more I understood, the more He challenged and changed my heart. The seed He planted and watered within me slowly broke its shell. I became convinced of my spiritual poverty and my lack of worship. It didn't matter that I could look around at other people, compare myself to them, and seem to be more of a worshiper than they were.

I began to realize in that it didn't matter how I looked in the eyes of others; what mattered was how I looked in the eyes of God. I began to see that real worship is much more than a weekly meeting. First, I acknowledged this in an intellectual mode. Then it sank 18 inches from my brain down into my heart, and became a deep-seated conviction, I began to grasp the fact that true worship is a lifestyle experience: It is expressed throughout the week in a variety of ways.

You may be thinking, "So worship is a way of life. So what? Does it really make any difference?" For an answer, look at the people around you. Unless you live in a Christian cocoon (and even there you are probably not exempt), you are surrounded by those for whom high times bring hedonism, low times bring lethargy and in-between times bring the blahs. Offend these people, and whether they're on a high, a low or an in-between, out comes profanity.

Now consider David, in the Old Testament. Whether he was on a high, a low or an in-between, out came psalms! From boyhood to mature adult, it was the same. We don't need to ignore his well-chronicled humanity. However, if you look at his life in general, you see that his life was permeated with worship. It simply overflowed from his heart, saturating his lifestyle. No wonder that - even in the New Testament (Acts 13:22) - it is recorded that God considered David a man after His own heart!

In return, God took this man whose lifestyle of worship separated him from the ordinary, run-of-the-mill lifestyles of those around him and gave him a significant, fulfilling leadership role in His plan for Israel.

As we explore this topic of worship, you may have some very reasonable questions: "What is worship? Is it good for my business? Does it guarantee corporate success? If I worship enough, will God rescue me from this drab job and make me a king like David (or a least a senior vice president)? "If I am a good worshiper, will God bless me with a big house in an affluent neighborhood? How about a BMW? If I worship well, will God make me be popular? Will it help me 'feel good' about myself? "Is it 'culturally relevant?' If worship can't be counted like cash, if it can't be seen like sailboats, and if it can't empower my position, who needs it?"

Tune in tomorrow for answers to those questions!

© 2007 John Garmo. If you would be interested in using this article, please contact us at Info@MissionToChildren.org.