Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised! - Psalm 48:1
To live a life that is a constant praise to God - that's my goal in life. I want my every action to worship Him and bring Him glory. It's a lofty goal and one I'll never be able to accomplish fully on this earth, but i sure want to give it a good shot.
But how exactly does it work? I mean, how can we worship God in everything we do? Some things just don't lend themselves to feelings of worship: chores, cleaning up after the dog, dealing with difficult people. We all have our lists of things we don't like doing. So how can we worship God while doing these things?
I think it has a lot to do with the attitude with which we approach the situation. When I'm dealing with a difficult person (personally one of the hardest times for me to worship God) my initial reaction is to just tell them off. I can't tell you how fast cutting remarks jump into my head and try to get out of my mouth. Obviously, this is not a godly response, so over the years I've been learning to bite my tongue (a few times quite literally).
Well, that keeps me from sinning, but I felt God challenging me to go even further- not to just keep from sinning, but to worship Him in that situation. I wasn't really sure how to do that so I asked him to help me and (as always) He did.
He started by explaining that I needed to see the situation the way He did. Dealing with these people was not a hassle to get away from as quickly as possible but an opportunity to show God's love to someone. I asked God to show me His heart for these people and help me love them. Slowly, ways to encourage them began to come to my mind instead of cutting sarcasm. In fact, I started to get excited when a disagreeable person came my way because I knew it was a chance for me to try to encourage them. I even found myself thanking God for the conversation...and then I realized it - I was worshiping God! Not with a song singing "Hallelujah, praise Jesus!" but in my actions and attitudes that were honoring God and the thankfulness that had found it's way into my heart.
Now do I treat every person God brings my way as He wants me to? Unfortunately, no. But with God's help my heart towards them is changing and becoming a heart of worship.
The great thing is, this attitude of worship is not confined to showing God's love to annoying people. It can apply to any aspect of life! As I mentioned before, we've all got our lists of things we hate. I would encourage you to pick something off that list (be it washing the dishes to respecting your parents even when their decisions don't make sense) and ask God to show you His heart for the situation. As you seek His heart He will change yours and before you know it, you'll be worshiping Him through your actions. It's not an easy journey, seriously it's one of the most trying things God's asked me to do, but the reward is well worth it.
But how exactly does it work? I mean, how can we worship God in everything we do? Some things just don't lend themselves to feelings of worship: chores, cleaning up after the dog, dealing with difficult people. We all have our lists of things we don't like doing. So how can we worship God while doing these things?
I think it has a lot to do with the attitude with which we approach the situation. When I'm dealing with a difficult person (personally one of the hardest times for me to worship God) my initial reaction is to just tell them off. I can't tell you how fast cutting remarks jump into my head and try to get out of my mouth. Obviously, this is not a godly response, so over the years I've been learning to bite my tongue (a few times quite literally).
Well, that keeps me from sinning, but I felt God challenging me to go even further- not to just keep from sinning, but to worship Him in that situation. I wasn't really sure how to do that so I asked him to help me and (as always) He did.
He started by explaining that I needed to see the situation the way He did. Dealing with these people was not a hassle to get away from as quickly as possible but an opportunity to show God's love to someone. I asked God to show me His heart for these people and help me love them. Slowly, ways to encourage them began to come to my mind instead of cutting sarcasm. In fact, I started to get excited when a disagreeable person came my way because I knew it was a chance for me to try to encourage them. I even found myself thanking God for the conversation...and then I realized it - I was worshiping God! Not with a song singing "Hallelujah, praise Jesus!" but in my actions and attitudes that were honoring God and the thankfulness that had found it's way into my heart.
Now do I treat every person God brings my way as He wants me to? Unfortunately, no. But with God's help my heart towards them is changing and becoming a heart of worship.
The great thing is, this attitude of worship is not confined to showing God's love to annoying people. It can apply to any aspect of life! As I mentioned before, we've all got our lists of things we hate. I would encourage you to pick something off that list (be it washing the dishes to respecting your parents even when their decisions don't make sense) and ask God to show you His heart for the situation. As you seek His heart He will change yours and before you know it, you'll be worshiping Him through your actions. It's not an easy journey, seriously it's one of the most trying things God's asked me to do, but the reward is well worth it.
Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised!
2 comments:
I love the title. That is a great song. :) When are you leaving for college?
thats good kar.
i like it.
you have a lot of deep, dicerning thoughts. im glad you share them. :)
you really do have wisdom beyond your years...
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