Preparing for Worship

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.
Psalm 96:8-9

We were created to worship. God created us to worship Him alone, but because of our sin we default to worshiping anything and everything except God. Everyday we choose what we will worship. A choice of not just what we do but how we do it.

At our previous church we used to set up everything for Sunday service on Friday nights. One of the things I would set up were strings of lights from the ceiling. It had been my idea and I thought they looked great, but it turned out they were a giant pain to put up. I would be rushing around to get them up while making sure all the sound equipment was ready, and trying to be quick because everyone, myself included, wanted to get out of there.

Inevitably I would get frustrated with the lights. I would get annoyed with other people because they would set up things differently or in an order that made things more difficult for me with the lights. Things would fall and bulbs would break because I wasn't cautious enough. I even fell off a chair into a bunch of other chairs once because I didn't take the time to get a ladder and move chairs.

In the midst of my frustration, and downright anger, the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin. God didn't need the work I could produce or a task that I could provide. He wanted my heart. He wanted me to serve with joy and worship. He wanted me to glorify Him.

So I decided to do something very different. I decided I would go on Saturdays by myself and I would set up the lights as slowly as it took for me to do it while praising God. The first few times it was slow. Very slow. As soon as I would start to get frustrated or upset I would stop and sit down. I would pray and sing while I put up the lights, and soon the way I felt about them began to change because my heart was changing. Very quickly those Saturdays became about prayer and worship, and valuable to me in a way I would have never expected. It wasn't about annoying lights anymore, but time with and service to my God.
I recently finished reading through First and Second Kings. One of the things that stood out to me was what a big deal worship is to God. Kings that are described as doing evil in the eyes of the Lord because they led Israel or Judah away from the true God in worship of false gods. They set up high places for the people to worship these false gods. Even when there would be a king who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord so many times they would not tear down these high places and the people would continue to worship false gods. Eventually, both Israel and Judah were destroyed and the people exiled because of their idolatry.

It has taken years, but God has been using all of these things to teach me about worship. To challenge me to remove the things in my life that lead me to worship other things, and to start each day not just reading His word but really worshiping Him. Those things make it easier to worship God the way He intended as I go about my day.