Worship Happens

We are all worshippers, created to bring pleasure and glory to the God who created us.  It matters not whether you consider yourself Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. or religious in any way.  You don’t believe me?  Go to a rock concert or a sporting event and you will see amazing worship taking place.  People are lifting their hands, shouting, standing in awe, and often reaching out hoping for a touch from their “idol/god.”  They are dedicated to and pledge their allegiance, as well as theirtime and  money towards the objects of their worship.

You daily engage in worship whether your god is shopping, NASCAR, gambling, or a rock star. My point is that you are doing ‘what comes naturally,’ worshipping because we come into this world prewired to just that, worship. Louie Giglio asks the question: “How do we know for sure that some things are more important than others, more worthy of worship?  How do we even know that value, beauty, and worth exist?”  He goes on to answer: “I think it’s because we were designed that way.  We were made for God.” 

So the next time you feel inexorably drawn from idol to idol feeling desperately in need of something or some purpose ask yourself why?  What’s missing?  My guess is that real authentic worship is the missing piece in your life.   

We have been created by God and for God so that we have within us a place that only God can fill. We cannot live with that empty space and if we turn from God we look for other ways to satisfy that inner void or longing.  That God-shaped space within us has often been described as an internal magnet or homing device that pulls us towards God;  yet because God gave us a free will, we can turn from him and try to fill that void with something else.

While in Athens Paul speaks to this God-shaped place in all people as  he tells his listeners about the God that they had been searching for telling the men of Athens to meet the God of gods. He kept describing a God that has “determined” for all humans “their appoint times and the boundaries of their habitation…that men [all people] would seek God…for in him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17). We are not only drawn towards God, he is seeking us in return.  He is seeking so that we can know what we have been created to do and He’s seeking because He knows that we cannot truly live without Him. 

This is why we worship and are so good at it.  This also explains why Jesus willingly came.  He came to connect us once again to God and to awaken us to the possibility of centering our worship on who and what matters most.