At the Heart of Worship

Receiving numerous reprimands with a flash of the eyes, over the years I have learned to sing more quietly. I am not a strong singer and enjoyment during worship time at church had faded. It’s almost a requirement to sing well if you are a woman, to harmonize, to reach the high notes. On the rare occasion when we sing the songs with girl parts and boy parts, I have to join in with the boys. That’s the way I rock it.Worship is very important, and it should be a lifestyle, a lifestyle of worship; Do all things as unto the Lord; whether it is working or playing, singing and praising, or dancing before the Lord. Lately, I have been trying something new, to praise God while I watch television. Now, this can be a bit tricky, and the activity itself requires that a certain standard be applied to the particular programs that I watch, PBS is usually pretty good, as are some of the science and nature channels. Lately, the cuttlefish, a relative to the squid found only around Australia and Indonesia has fascinated me. As my husband and I watched the cuttlefish swim, the colors on it’s backed rippled instantaneously with the changing environment. As he swam, he adapted. Next, the filmmakers brought us to a coral bed. Anxiously awaiting the arrival of the cuttlefish, the filmmaker disturbed the sand around the coral, and in a flash; the coral broke off and swam like death was near. This piece of coral fooled us; it was the cuttlefish! It had adapted not only in color, but exact shape as well. Sadly, the last we saw of the cuttlefish, was the greatest display of its adaptability. The scientists removed the fish from its natural environment and put it in an aquarium with a black and white checkered bottom. Mike and I waited in anticipation, as the colors on the cuttlefish’s back rippled in confusion, we continued to wait for a minute or two. The colors rippled over its body, then, faintly at first, we began to see a soft white square come to the surface of its skin, then with increasing boldness, and one hooray from me, one perfect white square sat solidly on the cuttlefish’s back. How can I not praise God for his genius and creativity! Time and time again, He gives us good reason to praise him.
A few years back, in the midst of my silent singing years, which, I should add, I am now trying to get beyond; I learned of another way I could worship God. I was attending a mission school; and every morning we began with an extended worship time, more singing. We met in a classroom with only an acoustic guitar, 30 women and 5 men; it was a fear I faced every day. We would sing and sing, pray and sing, sing some more, and then it was class time. This went on for three months. At the end of the school, the class had what is called a “love feast”; which was a time to eat together, share our experiences from the school, and just enjoy the time we had with one another. This year; however, we would have a time to give an offering to God. Whatever we wanted to offer, we would place at the foot of the cross, and later, under the dark of night, our offerings would be removed and burned. It was a chance for people to write down their fears, or struggles with sin, or whatever they may want to give to God. Immediately, when I heard this, my heart jumped for joy; I had never thought of this before, but here was an opportunity for me to give God a gift of something I was really good at; I could give Him the best gift I had. I would draw Him a picture. I immediately started preparing, and I knew just the picture I wanted to draw; it was a picture that had come to represent my special time alone with Jesus. It was just Jesus and me in a forest clearing, just being there together, no words exchanged. During the course of this school, I always thought of that picture and reminded myself of His safety and trustworthiness. I worked furiously on this drawing. I knew exactly how it should look, but unfortunately, I knew exactly how it should look, and this wasn’t it. I worked it and reworked it, crumpled some pages and started again. The morning of the love feast, I looked at my special gift, and was again humiliated by the gift I was giving God that night; I might as well be singing a solo. But I consoled myself, ‘it is about the heart’; and I had poured all of mine into it. Everything went a little slower that morning; I was really disappointed, but mostly ashamed of my gift. As I was getting ready though, I heard something in my spirit, more clearly than a thought I could have, “Give me your dreams and I will make them my promises.” I physically stopped what I was doing; the clarity and the precision of this message had startled me. I was stunned by what I was learning about God in this moment, what God truly wanted of me, and what I had been keeping from him all this time. I had always kept my dreams close, never able to really share this most intimate part of me, and it was that part of me that God wanted. I am sure God appreciated my efforts at drawing, and appreciated the heart that went into it, but he wanted to have the private dreams, those things that kept me going when I was despairing; He wanted to be the reason I kept going. I sat down, this time with a pen; there would be no erasing this page. I knew exactly what should be there: those things that kept me company at night when I couldn’t sleep, the places my mind always wandered to, and the things I thought about when my mind would drift away from prayer. I wrote my dreams on a sheet of paper, placed them in the envelope and asked God to take care of them. That night at the feast, we each got to say a little something about our offering if we had brought one, I said my piece and placed the envelope between the flowers that were at the foot of the cross. After the dinner was over, and people were milling around, blowing out the candles and picking up the plates; the woman who was in charge of the “burning” walked over to me with my envelope in hand. Recognizing the importance of this evening for me, she held out the envelope for me and asked if I would like to hang onto it, to remember the day. I know I must have smiled, because my immediate thought was, of course I would like to hang onto it, it is what I have always done, I have always held these dreams very tightly, but “No,” I told her. “You can burn them.” That was freedom. To be honest, I don’t remember what I wrote down, I didn’t give them to God to receive a promise, I did it because of what I had learned: that a true heart of worship is the one that gives of itself, the things it holds most dear. It is the God we serve that cherishes those things as well.