From Chapter 10 {Worship Anyway}
“I have this theory. When we are not ok with where we are we feel it so deep down in our bones it colors everything we do. We set up shop in a place called Pity Party loving our own misery a little too much. We like our safe, sad place. But the Lord wants so much more for us. He loves us too much to leave us there:
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses
Have you been making mud pies lately, too? Are you fooling around with all the wrong things to try and make it all better? For me, those wrong things look more like shopping or a bag of M&M’s, preferably at the same time. Still, I sit in the slum willingly ,crafting my own perfect mud pie, and watch the cruise ship of infinite joy float by. I can’t imagine I have a ticket to ride.
But I do. And stamped on the ticket is one word: Worship.
“Without worship we go about miserable; that’s why we have all the troubles we have.” A.W. Tozer
I think Tozer is spot on. We are miserable because in our discontentment we have lost our desire to worship. We feel forgotten and our souls are cast downward. We have believed the lie worship is reserved for all those other girls who are loving life and telling everyone about it. The problem with this line of thinking is we make worship about how we are feeling, and quite frankly that is not at all what worship is about.
I know you may not totally OK with where you are. You aren’t required to be to worship. You may feel like the night is going to last forever, but I promise you the joy of the morning is coming for you. His grace is going to outlive your life. And on the days when you wish you could trade yours for another, go ahead and pour out your heart. Dear girl, He hears it as a praise song. Do you believe it?
The thing about worship is it moves us and transforms us. It may well be the key to seeing everything in our life as stepping stones to getting us right were He wants us:
Hearts open.
Eyes on Him.
Hands to heaven.
Ready and willing to do His will.
We worship.”
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Can I say I have a healthy dose of jealousy for Sandra and her fabulous job of reading ALL your words in this book before September? You, my friend, inspire. This book is beautiful and if this last chapter nugget isn’t the teaser to get me to buy the book in the fall, I don’t know what is. I would love to read this book with my “bench friends”…so any discussion questions you could toss in at the end of the chapters would make my life 10 times easier (but obviously only if that makes sense with the formatting of the book!). Love you friend. Well done. Can’t wait to keep cheering for you.
Great idea Crystal! Thank you. I’ll make sure questions are part of the book!
Love you girl!
Ok so I don’t know where I’ve been the last 10 weeks…oh wait I’ve been playing with my kids :-)… anyway , I can’t tell you how much what you shared in this post has resonated with me! I will be taking time in the next few days to go back over all 10 weeks of posts :-). And I definitely know what book I will be downloading on Sept 3. Thanks & praying for you as you go through the editing process.
Thanks Mary! You can links to all the post in this series here..
I think your message of being okay with where we are is so important, as we understand and are content with the place God has us, we will also find ourselves going where we are supposed to go – all in His time! Sometimes it is hard to find that balance with being in the moment and longing for what’s ahead or what we are working toward.
Lol on the extra “that’s”!
I would love to be a reader who (hint hint) reads the rough draft 🙂