To Worship

Worship. That was the answer he gave me. I was struggling in a relationship. I had done all I could. Nothing else was left to do, and things were still awry. Turning to a godly mentor, I expected to hear a tangible list of options. His answer was "worship." I was taken aback. However, I had nothing else I could do. So I focused on worship....Worship of the one and only Creator...Worship of the Almighty and All-powerful God...Worship of the One who holds all things in his hands. In that time I discovered that I had become wrapped up in self. I was focused on my human abilities to fix a problem. I had lost sight of God. Worship didn't fix the human relationship where I was struggling. However, worship righted my relationship with God that had become out of focus amidst the strain of human struggle. Much of the Old Testament is focused around worship, I realize. The Israelites either worshipped God or they worshipped idols. I often shake my head at the foolishness of idolatry as I read in the Old Testament.  Jeremiah's description in chapter 10:1-5 is almost comical. They cut a tree, they shape it, and they adorn it.  "Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak."  Their idols had to be carried because they could not walk. Craziness!   "But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them." Psalm 115:4-8 Idolatry... man deciding to worship something of his own making and somehow thinking it has power to save. Or could idolatry take things a step further and morph into worshipping oneself? "The question is not whether you will worship, but rather what you will worship..." (Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies, Nov. 25) We were made to worship. We were made in the image of our Creator. He is a part of us. It is in our DNA to worship Him. However, our human nature gets in the way. It skews our thinking. We get confused. We look to ourselves rather then our Creator to fulfill our need to worship. It's easy for me to stand in judgement of those foolish Israelites and the foreign nations who bowed down to idols. I wonder though...am I any different? When I look to myself for the answers...When I look to others for answers...When I have to have things my way...When I make it all about ME. Am I really any different?

My idolatry looks different then falling down in front of a wooden idol, but it's not any more foolish. I bow down to my desires. I bow down to human wisdom. I bow down to my ability to fix something. I look to myself or someone else to have the power to save. Paul David Tripp in his devotional New Morning Mercies says it this way, "The idolatry that defeats us is usually not the worship of formal religious idols but of a whole catalog of God-replacements, the chief of which is self." (Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies, Nov. 25) Our upcoming move has put this all into greater perspective for me. Sometimes I live as if it all depends on me. He gently reminds me it is His church, not mine. Sometimes I desire praise for things, and then he reminds me that it was only done by His strength. Sometimes I want to make it about me, and in the dark of the night I read these words over and over, "The Lord reigns." It's a daily struggle for me...to take myself off the throne...to remember God is there...to worship Him alone. I am made in the image of God. To claim anything else is to deny the essence of who I am. However, God didn't desire for me to worship myself, one of his creations. He made me to worship him. "Lord, do not let me live as one with eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear."