This is an incomplete essay on worship that started as a prayer entry in my journal and evolved into what it is now as I began to actually think of the word "Worship." The essay is incomplete because I have no grasp on the topic at all, simply the beginnings for much more meditation and consideration and prayer as the Lord works this in my life. So here is the way the Lord is beginning to work in this area in my life.
Worship. Worship is due Thee, O God. Thou alone art worthy of worship. Worship is a strong word. The dictionary defines it as: to treat somebody or something as divine and show respect by engaging in acts of prayer and devotion; to love, admire, or respect somebody or something greatly and perhaps excessively or unquestioningly; the adoration, devotion, and respect given to a deity; the rites or services through which people show their adoration, devotion, and respect for a deity; great or excessive love, admiration, and respect felt for somebody or something. Also (other dictionary): reverence toward a divine being or supernatural power; the expression of such reverence; extravagant respect or admiration or devotion; worthiness, respect, reverence paid to a divine being; to honor or reverence as a divine being or supernatural power; idolize. The only synonyms offered are: adore and venerate. In Scripture, in the word “worship” or variants thereof are used 188 times. Scripture at times defines word for us (faith, eternal life, condemnation, etc.), but not so with worship. Why? Perhaps because by the very way that God created us, we know innately what worship is. Worship is at the core of our being. Worship is that within us which, by its very strength and intensity towards its fixed object, regulates our behavior, our thoughts, our actions, and our reactions. The last of these is perhaps the most telling—reactions. For, like worship, my reactions come from the center of my being. If, in the deepest recesses of my heart, my worship is directed towards any object other than the one True and Worthy God, when I react, the misplaced adoration will spill forth, revealing the barren ugliness of a soul that is not sourced in the Spring of Living Water. Even in the mind, I can distinguish the object of my worship according to my mental reactions. When a blessing is poured out, does my mind leap to praise my God, the source of this blessing, before it proceeds to tell others? When I am hurt, do I run to the phone to sob out my woes to a friend, or it is it straightway, “I must talk with my Lord”? When I am lonely, to whom does my mind first turn to relieve its solitude? The object of my worship will determine the answer to all these questions. Worship of anything other than God is misplaced. Humans are wired in such a way that we must worship something. Our souls require us to choose something to be our supreme desire, something around which are lives will revolve. Our lives orbit around our souls and at the center of our soul there is that vacuum which demands to be filled. What we worship is what we attempt to place in the vacuum, and this fact should clarify why God alone is worthy of worship. If we were to scrutinize that horrible vacuum which we have tried so desperately to fill with our Self, our possessions, other people, and so on, we would find that it is, as one author said, “God-shaped.” In other words, God alone can satisfy every single, aching abyss of the human soul. If only God is great enough to satiate the soul, then surely He ought to be the only Object of the soul’s adoration. The soul must, then, center around God to such an extent that its consuming passion for this Glorious Being regulates the entire sphere of that soul’s life. Worship. Worship God. Yea, even, so for He alone is worthy.
Worship: the response of my soul when God is in His proper position as Center and Sovereign of my life.
"Exalt ye the LORD our God, and worship at His footstool, for He is holy." Ps. 99:5
