As parents my wife and I enjoy watching our children — most of the time. When our first child was born we quickly learned that this bundle of joy would take a lot of work.
As he grew we discovered that we had a child with an almost endless supply of energy. When he was four we took him to the Wheels Inn in Chatham, Ontario and found out what it would take to exhaust his energy. We stayed there three days and two nights and were rarely in the room. We swam (the hotel had three indoor pools), played racquet ball, swam, bowled, swam, played putt-putt golf, swam and slept.
On the day we checked out we ate breakfast, swam, changed and then checked out. By that time it was approaching lunch. We knew that something different was happening when our son said that he wasn’t hungry and didn’t want anything for lunch. He wasn’t sick, just exhausted. His eyes had that glazed look and he soon fell asleep giving us a very quiet ride home. He woke up in time for supper and then went right to bed.
We had successfully worn him out. It had only taken us three days of non stop activity. Fortunately we were able to sit and observe some of his energy spending activity or we would have crashed much sooner than he did. We had enjoyed watching our son have fun.
As this child has grown and three others have been added to our family we have watched our children in a variety of activities: sports, various school activities, vacations and just hanging out around the house.
As I said earlier, we enjoy watching our children -most of the time. That’s the way it is with God, also.
He enjoys watching us -most of the time. Too few of us realize that God gets pleasure out of us. The Bible tells us that, “You (God) created everything and it is for Your pleasure that they exist and were created.” Revelation 4:11
The Bible has a word for us giving God pleasure. It is called ‘worship.’ Too many of us have a limited view of worship and think of it only in terms of attendance at a church service or singing. Others may think that we’ve got to quit our job to spend hours each day worshiping God.
God doesn’t want you to do that. He simply wants you to change who you work for. ‘Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” Colossians 3:23.
If you act like you’re working for God at your job, then you wilt have a completely different attitude about your work. It doesn’t matter if you’re a production engineer, a stay at home mom, a clerical worker or a shop worker. If you’re good at filing, then file excellently for God. If you’re good at teaching, then teach well for God.
The essence of worship is offering. Offer up your job to God as worship. When you’re not at your job, offer up to God whatever you’re doing as worship. “Take your everyday, ordinary life -your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life -and place it before God as an offering.” Rom. 12:1 (Message Bible)
What if you went into work tomorrow with the attitude that you were working for God. That could change even the most mundane job into worship. Everybody worships something. It’s just built into our DNA.
Whatever you give your primary attention and abilities Is what you worship. Real worship doesn’t happen In church; it happens out in the world.
God is thinking about you all the time. He created you and is glad that He did because He loves you so much. When you return that love to Him, that’s worship, and it doesn’t have to happen in a church building.
Larry Hayward pastors Oxford Community Church (a family friendly church designed for those who have given up on traditional church services) They meet at the Oxford Middle School at 10 am on Sundays.