Worship 1

Before I understood my aversion to girls in middle school and early high school, which I believe had to do with my parents’ divorce, I had a few interesting encounters in high school.  Those mostly happened in science class.  Now let me give you some background.  I would come from Spanish 2, where for the majority of the hour, I was ridiculed by this group of guys who thought it was funny to make inappropriate jokes to me because I was a Christian.  I would head to this class where these two girls, Leah and Shannon, would talk to me almost every day.  I always considered this as friendship, and I would go about my business in class.  One day one of the girls asked to play with my watch.  It had one of those spin dials on it.  She was playing with it for a while, and I offered to take it off and let her play with it.  She did, but only for a little bit, and gave it back.  Was this a sign?  I think it was an obvious sign of flirting, but I was too caught up in my work to realize it.  I was also too destroyed from the last hour to see that intimacy didn’t have to be something exploited like the guys in Spanish class were doing, but could truly be something good and awesome.

            This story reveals a little about my insecurities, but I think it also demonstrates a big picture of our issues in worship.  Take for instance my struggle from the pain of the relationship I had observed between my parents.  This led to the possibility that relationships like that could also exist for me.  Then I watched several boys making inappropriate sexual jokes, a reflection of how society viewed relationships and intimacy.  They viewed love as sex, and anyone who didn’t see it that way was humiliated and embarrassed.  Finally this led to my inability to open myself up to the intended idea of love.  It was almost embarrassing that I couldn’t see the interest expressed to me by those girls.  This is a chain effect that obviously is just engulfed in sin.  Sin had in some ways blinded me to see the true purpose God had when He created relationships; how He had created us uniquely to enjoy those relationships.  If this is how messed up our human relationships are, think about how messed up our heavenly relationship can get.

            This weekend, we dive into the disciples’ first calling to worship and follow Christ.  I am often reminded that it is so easy to gloss over these stories without taking time to look at the depth of what is happening to the characters.  God was shaping the disciples back then like He fashions us today.  And like the disciples, our view of relationship and intimacy can be misconstrued. 

            Think about it.  Culture taught those guys to work and make money.  There is nothing wrong with this.  But they were engulfed in their work when Christ called them to follow Him.  While we don’t know the seconds or minutes it took them to leave their lives behind and follow Jesus, we do know this was not an easy choice. These men were taught to work.  They probably had seen the pains of those who didn’t work.  They probably saw this as the way to provide.  They probably even felt like God wanted them to work.  And then to have God, Jesus, call them to follow Him was a big deal--a relationship, an intimate trust in what He would provide. When He called them to Worship 1 it demanded a complete trust in their relationship with Jesus.

            As you began this blog you may have thought, Really, relationship and intimacy, what does that have to do with worship?  Worship requires a deep intimacy with God.  It becomes our relationship when we jump out of our own boats and follow Him.  It is different from the lives we are used to, because God’s definitions and actions are different from the world’s view.  As the disciples did in the beginning of their journey, we take our discipleship model to phase 1, and learn how to Worship 1 God who saved us, who desperately wants that relationship with us.