Day 23 - Psalm 66

Psalm 66 is written as a call to praise and worship. It started me thinking about how we define worship. I think it's easy to think that worship is church services, singing, reading scripture, tithing, and taking communion. But it's so much more.

We were created to worship the creator but with the sins of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, there is a shift in worship. In this crazy world where nothing works as it was originally intended, we worship created things. We worship money, cars. movie stars, athletes, alcohol, drugs, food, and the list could go on ad infinitum. What we worship defines where we put our focus.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship" (Romans 12:1). My life is worship; not Sunday morning worship services. As a body, we've become "Sunday centric." We focus on Sunday as our worship time and forget that everything we do is worship. Our messy-looking attempt at worship, when coming from the depths of our hearts, is worship that I believe God accepts.

I've been reading a book this week called Messy Spirituality. It asks a simple question: when our attempts at being spiritual don't look very spiritual, are they spiritual? I think if we worship from the depts of our hearts with all we have available to us, even if it looks messy, it is acceptable to God. Think of the widow who gave her last two coins, worth almost nothing, but it was all she had. "What landed Jesus on the cross was the preposterous idea that common, ordinary, broken, screwed up people could be godly. What drove Jesus' enemies craxy were his criticisms of the 'perfect' religious people and his acceptance of imperfect nonreligious people. The shocking implication of Jesus' ministry is that anyone can be spiritual" (Yaconelli 2001)*.

It may seem like I've gotten off subject, but I think for a messy person like me, when I read a Psalm like Psalm 66, I am quick to jump to the conclusion that I can never be as spiritual as this Psalmist. Satan wants me to believe that. It's one of his favorite lies; the one where we're not good enough. I've listened to him for much too long.

I will worship with all my heart, body, mind, and soul...whether it looks perfect or not.

*Yaconelli, Michael. Messy Spirituality. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002.

- submitted by Sandy Welfare