Not for us

It seems that the Packrat household never gets anywhere early, to Milady's constant consternation. (She is by nature punctual, if not early. The rest of the family, including me, will probably be late to our own funerals.) This last Sunday, we were running almost on time for the 9AM church service, so we hurried to an empty pew in the sanctuary without looking around. After the music started, I noticed that we were near (but not directly next) to a person whom has allegedly done some rather un-Christian things*. I started to get distracted by his presence, then that still small voice pointed out, "Let me worry about him, you pay attention to me".

It's easy for me to get distracted at worship. I'll worry about my pager, or the next blog entry, or the headache that hasn't quite faded from the week before. I spent almost an entire Michael W. Smith/Max Lucado/Third Day concert worried about how I wasn't feeling all that much. I tend to emotionally think of worshi p as something for me.

But it's not. It's about praising God. I might be more comfortable with singing Christian rock, while my grandparents and their church needed the 75 year old hymn books in order to be comfortable. I can't stand a tie, the older generation can't stand going without. Some need to be formal, some need to be "even more undignified than this".

The key to it all is that point that I had to be reminded about yet again. The point of worship is that it's about praising God. It's about raising our voice to Him, to point out Him and to lessen ourselves. We can't think of ourselves in the process.

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* No, no more details than that. It wasn't gossip, but any more information would be telling too much. Sorry.