Worship isn’t for me.

I don’t mean that I don’t like to worship, I mean that worship is not for my benefit.

Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten this. In my earlier years as a Christian, when my relationship with God was so brand new, all I wanted to do was to worship and offer my praise and thanksgiving to him. In fact, that’s all I did. It seems that everything I did and everywhere I went was about worshiping God.

I was so full of joy and gratitude for my salvation that there was literally nothing else to do but worship God. It’s all I thought about. My relationship with Him was all that mattered, and I talked to Him all the time. I was constantly reading, learning, praying, discussing, singing . . .

I was in Love, and there was no where else to be.

But in time, our relationship got comfortable.  It became normal.  It’s not that it wasn’t special anymore, it’s just that it wasn’t brand new.  And with each day, week, month and year, I integrated my relationship with God into my day-to-day existence.

“He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

Children are born with the knowledge of heaven on their hearts. We are born yearning for God.  No matter where on earth a child is born, no matter the circumstances, children already know about God.  This is innate, and it’s why children are considered “innocent”, and why they are so eager to learn about God and stories about him in the Bible?

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10b

I admit that I’ve always battled a bit with this part of Jesus’ prayer framework.  I guess I never really understood what it meant.  I’ve had many teach about the A.C.T.S. (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) structure of what the Lord’s Prayer was about, making a bit more sense of it rather than the simple recitation of it as is often done in the larger denominations.

But “asking” God to have his will done seems a bit beyond the scope of why I’m coming to him in prayer.  But after all this time, I’ve come to realize that this is precisely the scope of what I should be praying about.

If we are not at peace with God, we are at war with him.

Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. Job 22:21

It’s not complicated. There really are only two sides; so pick one.  So many of us, since the beginning of time, have elected to go our own way, apart from God and apart from the lives he would have us lead.  And those who do, or have done so, believe they are doing so benignly, innocently. There is not always a purposeful hostility towards God, just sort of an apathetic view and desire to live life apart from his laws and truth.

In 1999, I was given new inspiration.  After years of running away, I was provided the opportunity to come home.  I finally realized that my broken relationship with God wasn’t his fault.  He’d been trying for a very long time to show me, but I’d convinced myself it was he who was at fault, and so I refused to listen.  I thought that being apart from him gave me freedom, but alas, I was trapped.

I had been raised in the Catholic church, but after getting through confirmation at age 15, I decided that I didn’t really want to be a part of The Church, because I really didn’t like the things that I saw.  Real life and what I heard in church were two different and separate things, and those I saw who were most connected to the church were those I wanted least to emulate.  So, sadly, I convinced my parents and siblings to stop going: it was a waste of time.  So we did, and I never really looked back.

I spent most of my time convincing myself that I didn’t need God, and that if He was real and loved me, He’d try a lot harder to show me.  But, since I had worked so hard to become independent (I was a teenager for crying out loud), I really didn’t want or need God to show me anything.  I felt it would be better if He just left me alone.