On August 25, 2014, Max Lucado said, in his daily devotional, that worship is a “voluntary act of gratitude.” He goes on to say that you can’t plan worship, (as in “worship service”) because true worship (worship from the heart) arises from gratitude to a Lord God who has saved you, not just in a spiritual sense of giving you eternal life, but also in an immediate sense of saving you from your stupid (dare I say) evil self. Worship happens when it hits you that you have been healed of something that you KNOW is killing you; that you have been delivered from some evil that it nauseates you to think about the consequences of it.

Today is Sept. 9th, and I’m still going back to this devotional, because the contrast between ‘true’ worship and the kind of worship we usually experience on Sunday morning (or Saturday evening Mass, or whenever we go to ‘worship’ service) is so vivid. Max says ” We have tried to make a science out of worship. We can’t do that! We can’t do that any more than we can sell love or negotiate peace.” Wow! Where I come from “worship service” is a meeting where you sing 2 or 3 songs, listen to a few prayers, maybe say the Lord’s Prayer, hear a short sermon, occasionally take Communion, speak politely to the pastor at the end of the service, and go have Sunday dinner before watching the football game.

Just want you to know that Max is right. Worship is what happens when you are somewhere (sometimes even in church), and God brings to your mind how He delivered you from evil this week, in a near miss car wreck, or a serious confrontation with your boss over some deed undone or other failure at work. Worship is what happens when your blood pressure is so high that you’re feeling light-headed and you go to the doctor and they run all the tests, and everything is OK (I mean really OK). How does that happen? Must be God. Thank God that He really does care; that He really is looking out for you; that HE REALLY WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU NOR FORSAKE YOU. That’s worship.

Worship is what happens when you’re living from paycheck to paycheck and you just don’t quite make it to the end of the pay period before the ‘new’ bills are due; and a substantial sum of money just ‘falls out of the sky’. Whew! Did I ever need that to happen. You may not say anything to anyone else (though you should) but you KNOW down in your heart that it must be God. (’cause only He could have made that happen, just that way, at just the absolutely crucial time.) Thank God! Praise God! Hallelu-Jah!!!

Thanks Max. I pray that God will reveal Himself to us in all of these circumstances; that He will allow us to see what He’s doing, how much He cares, and WHO HE REALLY IS, so we can truly worship.