Why Worship?

When I was growing up, I loved to play outside. I looked forward to getting on my bicycle and riding around town with my friends. We often rode through a ditch in the neighborhood that took us under the highway and out into the woods and the often dry river bed. We would catch crawdads (as we called them), build forts, and make jumps for our bicycles. Sometimes homework would get in the way. Can you relate? I can’t tell you how many reading assignments I attempted to shortcut so that I could get outside and play. Rather than read textbooks, I would jump to the questions and scan the text for answers. With book reports, sometimes I found cliffnotes to help the process. Through this, I could get the homework finished. The problem was, I got little out of it. My heart was somewhere else.

Has worship ever been that way for you? Do you come to check off the box, while all the time your heart is elsewhere? Do you find your thoughts on the football game in the afternoon or the work you still have to complete? Do you think about other places you would rather be?

What if you approached your relationship to your spouse like this? Men, what if you took your wife out on a date because you know its important while all the while your mind is elsewhere? What if, while on your date, you find your eyes wandering to the cute waitress? Do you think your date will accomplish what you hoped? Why is that? Your wife wants your heart, not merely your duty.

Worship is an important thing and how we approach it tells us so much about how we understand our relationship to God.