I wrote this little thought in January.
I was walking along the shore of a lake yesterday when, as if by chance, I came across a startling truth, one of those things that has stared me in the face all my life but until now eluded focus. Some people, after all, can’t see past the end of their nose.
I was traversing the uneven ground near the water, the setting sun all but blinding me, when I began to run. I ran because I could, because no one was looking. And I suddenly felt like Frodo, straining to avoid the treacherous grasp of Shelob, the awful she-spider, from Tolkien’s trilogy. Shelob was a descendant from Ungoliant, that corruption of Melkor, the evil one — but I digress.
As I ran I thought of Frodo, and then of Gollum, who, being too much bone for Shelob’s taste, had become her servant, and in the dark of the mountain, he worshipped her.
I imagined at first that he lay before her in a trance-like state, empty minded. But this could not be. You don’t fall before a monster and enter a trance of praise; rather, you are awestruck at its power, humbled by its greatness and terrified by its awfulness. You serve it, just as Gollum did.
Now, the interesting thing is that I had considered worship as two different things: church and life. Life seemed easy, at least in concept, for “whether you eat or drink, do it all to the glory of God.†Church, however, had always given me a problem. I thought I was missing out on worship because I didn’t enter into this high and lofty experience which some people seem to have. But I don’t think that’s worship at all. Worship, I believe, is work. It takes effort to praise God. It’s more than an empty emotional experience. Testifying to the worthiness of YHWH in song and word and action — in everything — is worship.
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
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