Worship!

Stop.

As you breathe in, say: “God, you are my God.” As you exhale, say: “God, you alone.” Repeat as many times as you need.

Listen.

O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! – Psalm 95:6

Reflect.

Starting this week, our Sunday services will be about all the elements of worship and what makes them so important to our faith and life. While there may indeed be different worship styles, and not all services will always have all the same pieces, the pieces nonetheless point us back to our God who is the center of our lives.  

When we say that God is the center of our lives, it means that God is most important and valuable, most life-giving and holy. But it also means one other thing: God is God, and you are not. You can’t worship yourself. God isn’t you. God is something other entirely. 

I can hear you now: “Um, Pastor Megan, isn’t that obvious?” Unfortunately, no, it isn’t. If we’re going to talk about how worship rightly orients us to a God who is greater than all things, then that means worship points out to us that God is greater than us, because we are not God. 

It’s an easy mistake to make. None of us can really think or see past our own experiences so we start to assume our perspective is definitive. My way must be the best way. Better yet: my way must be God’s preferred way. It’s a small step from that to confusing our own likes and dislikes, opinions and insights, desires and disappointments are the same as God’s. It’s an even smaller step from that to thinking God and I are essentially the same. 

In worship, we encounter something mysterious, big, other, unknowable. We praise a God we cannot fully know, will never predict, must not limit. In worship, we are surrounded by believers unlike us who hold us accountable to the variety of God’s work in the world and the ways we’re sometimes wrong. In worship, we kneel before our Maker, acknowledging that we are the creation, not the Creator.

Pray.

Reveal your power to me, God, so I can be reminded that you are God, not me. I praise you, I honor you, I worship you. It is an honor to be your beloved creation. Amen.

Carry On.

Write yourself a note: “God is God. I am not.” Put it someplace you’ll see it each day. Reflect on what it means that God is your God, who can be trusted, who isn’t you. How does that change your day?