A Quiet Invitation to Worship
Can I be totally transparent? Last week was a tough week for me, emotionally. My Grammy and my Dad would have both celebrated birthdays last week. They’ve passed on and their birthday stirs up grief, and here is one thing I have learned about grief- it doesn’t like to be alone. Grief invites more grief, so my heart felt very tender and raw last week.
Amidst big emotions, we had some bigger family decisions to make and some challenging things to work out. Pairing this with the big emotions that I was already feeling left me feeling sad and overwhelmed on Sunday evening.
By God’s grace, our INSPIRE leadership team had our weekly Zoom and my dear sweet sisters prayed for me and with me, spoke truth into and over me, and turned my heart toward worshipping God. A friend reminded me that although the day felt hard, God is still good because He is always only ever redeeming all things.
I woke up Monday morning with a fresh perspective and decided to take a worship walk. I’m reading a book (Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald Whitney) that defines worship as “focusing on and responding to God”. I made the choice to carve out some quiet space to focus on and respond to God.
I grabbed my camera, laced up my sneakers, and went out into the quiet of the morning in search of beauty. I turned my attention toward the Creator and began to look for His fingerprints in creation. As I walked, I took pictures of the beauty I noticed. The more I looked, the more I noticed. The more I noticed, the more my heart responded.
My mind went to a familiar passage of scripture. Matthew 6:25-33 says…
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
As my heart responded in worship, my perspective shifted. I was overwhelmed with the presence of God, of His sovereignty, of His goodness, of His power, of His care, and of His big-ness. I was reminded that although my feelings of grief and sadness were real, they were in the hands of my loving Father.
God used quiet spaces and the beauty in creation to invite me into worship and then to transform my heart from the inside out. If your heart needs a re-set, consider creating a little quiet space to meet with God, focus your attention on Him, and allow your soul space to respond to who He is and what He’s done.