Monday, April 18, 2005

Through The Eyes Of Faith

This is copied and pasted from the Daily Devotional I receive from "Purpose-Driven Life".  The italicized portions are what really struck me, because this morning I spent a couple of pre-dawn hours at my cabin with Mandy.  Listening to the birds wake up in the woods is worship, to me.  Having my dog jump up on my cabin bed and curl up next to me is worship.  So many people miss out on the joy of life because they don't appreciate the small things.  And life is MOSTLY small things. 

Through Eyes of Faith
by John Fischer

You were planned for God’s pleasure, and bringing pleasure to God is called worship. Put these two things together and you can conclude that living your life as it was meant to be lived is an act of worship in and of itself. It would be good if we could get this concept and actually live our lives this way, but we have a tendency to miss the worship in the ordinary because we are looking elsewhere for the worship experience.

And people are looking everywhere. There is a movement afoot that can only be explained as a longing for a mystical religious experience, and by mystical, I mean something otherworldly. The huge outpouring of sentiment over the death of Pope John Paul II is one example. Interest in end-of-the-world apocalypse stories such as the Left Behind series would be another. The bestselling novel Da Vinci Code and NBC’s new dramatic series, Revelation, both show a rising interest is what one commentator called “religious mysteries.” And yesterday, on Larry King Live, a panel of “experts” explored the whole phenomenon of near-death experiences with a “hereafter.” What is going on here if it isn’t a growing spiritual hunger for a real experience with God?

Which is good and not so good. Good: in that people are seeking God — not so good: in that they have a tendency to look to the mysterious and otherworldly to find Him, and not into the more obvious day-to-day part of our lives. There isan element of mystery to our worship in that we are dealing with the unseen, but we are also dealing with the down-to-earth and the obvious, and if we had the eyes to see and the ears to hear, we would be finding God and mystery in the ordinary things as much as anywhere else. It’s like what Frederick Buechner wrote when he observed the childlike faith of people “who, like children, are so relatively unburdened by preconceptions that if somebody says there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they are perfectly willing to go take a look for themselves.”

In other words, they take the spiritual as something expected. People with childlike faith have no need to explain or explain away God in their lives; He simply is, and He is a part of everything they do. Spiritual things are obvious to children — even mystery. It’s all part of wonder, and worship is a kind of grownup wonder.

We don’t need to go outside of our normal experiences to experience God. We just need to believe, and starting with the eyes of a child, see everything we do through the eyes of faith.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a lovely entry!  I completely agree.  It's interesting how people and churches have come to view worship....music time in our church is called worship time....quite honestly, I believe that every breath I take is worship of Him, who has given me life.  Appreciating the wonder of nature is worship, seeing His reflection in the eyes of my children is worship,the blessing of my marriage gives me reason to worship, serving my MOPS ministry is worship, every small thing that I know and love in this world allows me to worship Him.  Only He is worthy of my devotion.  God Bless,   tam

Anonymous said...

Oh how I have grown to love the LITTLE pleasures I get through living!!!!
Carlene

Anonymous said...

I agree the best worship there is, is with the birds in the country. Paula