...On the life of King Solomon and his many wives.
Alex: "That was kind of a waste of women."
Greg: "He must have lived a long, long time, until he died."
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Observations...
...On the life of King Solomon and his many wives.
Alex: "That was kind of a waste of women."
Greg: "He must have lived a long, long time, until he died."
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Living Worship
Worship services just aren't what they used to be...B.C. (before children) that is. In the old days, I sat up front where the singing was united and I didn't have to miss any of the sermon because every third person around me had to go potty or needed a drink.
When we had children, we joined the other noisy, needy worshipers in the back third of the benches. Since our church still keeps the Mennonite tradition of separate seating for men and women, my role usually is to care for the smallest child, and Gabe takes the bigger, more trainable ones to sit with him. Recently, though, my ever shrinking lap has given us reason to switch assignments. He is the one with the wiggly 18 month old, and I am flanked on either side by two boys that he has trained to sit still. "Sit still" is relative to a small boy, most times a quite distant relative.
Last Sunday morning I had a serious brain lapse. In order to lure them into eating breakfast quickly, I got out the special treat I had been saving for them... Fruity Pebbles, that amazing mixture of food colorings and sugar. It took me about ten minutes in church to regret ever buying those things, even for 95 cents a box at the bent and dent store. The boy on my left was helpless to control his wiggles. Knowing he has to stay on the bench, his bottom stayed put, but the rest of him did serial squirming and twitching the whole morning. He made valiant efforts, after maternal prompting, to be a quiet mouse for 5 minutes, but it was just too much. I was seriously considering letting him do laps in the parking lot about then.
Meanwhile the other boy got tired of his book and was bored and wanted to write and needed a drink and was bored and hungry and tired. I understood that the message concerned our living hope, and I was blessed by the children's lesson, but when the worship service was over, I didn't feel like I had worshiped very much.
All of this is to explain why I was so inspired by A.W. Tozer's thoughts on worship in "The Pursuit of God". I quote,"We tend to divide our total life into two departments, unconsciously recognizing two sets of actions. The first are performed with a feeling of satisfaction and assurance that they are pleasing to God...prayer, Bible reading, hymn singing, church attendance and other acts of faith. The secular acts include all the ordinary activities, such as eating, sleeping,working, looking after the needs of the body, and performing our dull and prosaic duties here on earth. These we often do reluctantly, apologizing to God for what we consider a waste of time and strength."
He goes on to describe the frustration and lack of peace that comes from this false dilemma in the mind of the Christian. Jesus, while in a human body, did not have a divided life. He said, "I do always the things that please the Father."
Most encouraging to me is the realization that for the born again believer, every act of our ordinary lives can bring glory to God. All of life becomes a sacrament, an external expression of inward grace. Our daily labor can be performed as acts of worship to God in Jesus Christ. This is presenting our bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God...
I know all this in my head, and it brings an incredibly restful unity in my heart. Let there be no sacred/secular divide! Even in a service that is designed specifically for worship, and I find myself in the middle of child training!
When we had children, we joined the other noisy, needy worshipers in the back third of the benches. Since our church still keeps the Mennonite tradition of separate seating for men and women, my role usually is to care for the smallest child, and Gabe takes the bigger, more trainable ones to sit with him. Recently, though, my ever shrinking lap has given us reason to switch assignments. He is the one with the wiggly 18 month old, and I am flanked on either side by two boys that he has trained to sit still. "Sit still" is relative to a small boy, most times a quite distant relative.
Last Sunday morning I had a serious brain lapse. In order to lure them into eating breakfast quickly, I got out the special treat I had been saving for them... Fruity Pebbles, that amazing mixture of food colorings and sugar. It took me about ten minutes in church to regret ever buying those things, even for 95 cents a box at the bent and dent store. The boy on my left was helpless to control his wiggles. Knowing he has to stay on the bench, his bottom stayed put, but the rest of him did serial squirming and twitching the whole morning. He made valiant efforts, after maternal prompting, to be a quiet mouse for 5 minutes, but it was just too much. I was seriously considering letting him do laps in the parking lot about then.
Meanwhile the other boy got tired of his book and was bored and wanted to write and needed a drink and was bored and hungry and tired. I understood that the message concerned our living hope, and I was blessed by the children's lesson, but when the worship service was over, I didn't feel like I had worshiped very much.
All of this is to explain why I was so inspired by A.W. Tozer's thoughts on worship in "The Pursuit of God". I quote,"We tend to divide our total life into two departments, unconsciously recognizing two sets of actions. The first are performed with a feeling of satisfaction and assurance that they are pleasing to God...prayer, Bible reading, hymn singing, church attendance and other acts of faith. The secular acts include all the ordinary activities, such as eating, sleeping,working, looking after the needs of the body, and performing our dull and prosaic duties here on earth. These we often do reluctantly, apologizing to God for what we consider a waste of time and strength."
He goes on to describe the frustration and lack of peace that comes from this false dilemma in the mind of the Christian. Jesus, while in a human body, did not have a divided life. He said, "I do always the things that please the Father."
Most encouraging to me is the realization that for the born again believer, every act of our ordinary lives can bring glory to God. All of life becomes a sacrament, an external expression of inward grace. Our daily labor can be performed as acts of worship to God in Jesus Christ. This is presenting our bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God...
I know all this in my head, and it brings an incredibly restful unity in my heart. Let there be no sacred/secular divide! Even in a service that is designed specifically for worship, and I find myself in the middle of child training!
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