"Mommy" Thoughts on Worship
Our pastor gave an illustration on Sunday. It’s a pretty familiar one. You have a jar in which you place a few largish rocks. Is it full? No. You can still add some smaller rocks that will settle in between the cracks of the bigger rocks. After that you can still add some pebbles, then some sand, and finally some water. Then it’s full. The point of the illustration is that we need to fit the most important (biggest) things into our lives first. The biggest “rock” in our lives should be worship. We need to fit that rock in first.
As I was thinking about that illustration this week, it started to somewhat break down in my mind. It’s a good illustration, don’t get me wrong. It’s certainly correct - we need to keep our priorities straight. But I thought of an even better and sillier illustration. I thought of this because I am a mother of young children. Our pastor would probably not have the occasion to think about things quite this way.
Worship is like play-dough in a can. It is flexible, and you can always add more to it. At least you can add more until your can is full. It doesn’t matter what color it is, you can add it to the rest. You only have so much room in your can, but the goal is to have your can (life) filled completely with play-dough only. You don’t want dirt, little Legos, sticks, or dried chunks of play-dough in there. Trust me on that one.
What is worship? It is offering up our lives for the glory of God. Anything that has the purpose of glorifying God is worship. So let’s say for example washing dishes. Is it worship or is it household drudgery? Well, I wash dishes for a number of reasons. Eating on dirty dishes would be a health hazard. It’s too expensive to buy paper plates and cups for every meal, not to mention too much trash. Letting dirty dishes pile up too high makes the home an unpleasant place to be. So I wash dishes to serve my family. This brings glory to God. Ergo, doing dishes is worship.
Serving, encouraging, chores of all sorts, are all different chunks of play-dough. We all have different combinations of colors of play-dough combined into our own little play-dough glob, hopefully coming closer each day to filling up our can completely. Sometimes we find things in our play-dough that do not belong. Sometimes our worship goes awry. Doing dishes gets to be a laborious chore and all we can think about is how no one else is pitching in to help. That is a dried up piece of play-dough that doesn’t belong with the rest anymore. You have to throw it out. It’s selfishness. The goal is to get rid of everything in your life that isn’t play-dough (worship).
Here are a few things that don’t belong: sin (obviously), unnecessary complexity (too many possessions, for example), purposelessness (is that a word?). No one reaches the goal in this lifetime. Jesus did, but the rest of us humans still have a long way to go. My New Year’s Resolution is to accumulate more play-dough and dig through what I have and throw out the sticks and other debris.
As I was thinking about that illustration this week, it started to somewhat break down in my mind. It’s a good illustration, don’t get me wrong. It’s certainly correct - we need to keep our priorities straight. But I thought of an even better and sillier illustration. I thought of this because I am a mother of young children. Our pastor would probably not have the occasion to think about things quite this way.
Worship is like play-dough in a can. It is flexible, and you can always add more to it. At least you can add more until your can is full. It doesn’t matter what color it is, you can add it to the rest. You only have so much room in your can, but the goal is to have your can (life) filled completely with play-dough only. You don’t want dirt, little Legos, sticks, or dried chunks of play-dough in there. Trust me on that one.
What is worship? It is offering up our lives for the glory of God. Anything that has the purpose of glorifying God is worship. So let’s say for example washing dishes. Is it worship or is it household drudgery? Well, I wash dishes for a number of reasons. Eating on dirty dishes would be a health hazard. It’s too expensive to buy paper plates and cups for every meal, not to mention too much trash. Letting dirty dishes pile up too high makes the home an unpleasant place to be. So I wash dishes to serve my family. This brings glory to God. Ergo, doing dishes is worship.
Serving, encouraging, chores of all sorts, are all different chunks of play-dough. We all have different combinations of colors of play-dough combined into our own little play-dough glob, hopefully coming closer each day to filling up our can completely. Sometimes we find things in our play-dough that do not belong. Sometimes our worship goes awry. Doing dishes gets to be a laborious chore and all we can think about is how no one else is pitching in to help. That is a dried up piece of play-dough that doesn’t belong with the rest anymore. You have to throw it out. It’s selfishness. The goal is to get rid of everything in your life that isn’t play-dough (worship).
Here are a few things that don’t belong: sin (obviously), unnecessary complexity (too many possessions, for example), purposelessness (is that a word?). No one reaches the goal in this lifetime. Jesus did, but the rest of us humans still have a long way to go. My New Year’s Resolution is to accumulate more play-dough and dig through what I have and throw out the sticks and other debris.
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