Life as Worship

I've been David these days. I'm floundering and stumbling after God, misunderstanding Him and grabbing at works. I'm stuck in His grace, frantically looking for an answer - is this really as good as it sounds? My tiny ant brain is forcing itself to define the magnitude of God and when it can't, I strip Him of that power.. because it seems less frightening than grasping that the God that formed man from dust, breathed life into man, guided eternity to salvation, loves me so intimately. Doesn't that take your breath away?

When Moses asks 'who should I say sent me' and God says I AM WHO I AM, I fight to understand. And my sinfulness says, but how do I earn that?

Jesus is a gift, a gift we cannot earn. I read who this mighty, powerful God is and I am moved by the act of taking on flesh. The act of dying a crucifixion death, of coming alive, of the promise of return. And I fumble through my days with lack of discipline, vowing that I can do it all on my own, with eyes bent on making it out on top. Is this really what I offer God in return? I lose sight and it is so frustrating.

I battle. I want to give God perfection. But this unattainable goal only produces mounds of frustration and guilt and the realization that that will never happen. I slip into defining the gift of Christ by worldly standards - you give me a gift, I give one back. You gave me the gift of life? I don't know how to give you anything in return. I am human, sinful, broken, my heart is so ugly sometimes. Will you take that?

And I'm realizing God answers that question with a resounding yes.

From David's heart, he cries in Psalm 51 to be washed in a cleanliness that comes only from the presence of God. 'Create in me a clean heart, O God,' David cries, 'and renew a right spirt within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.' What a beautiful, humbling confession.

My eye catches in verse 17 - 'my sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.'

I flash to Romans where Paul writes of presenting our bodies as living sacrifices. I flash to the imperfect lives of the great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews, who stumbled and questioned, but who were counted righteous because of their faith. I jump to the Gospels and read the character of Jesus. I wrap my head around the fact that this love is something I will never be able to wrap my head around. But what I do rest in is that I can be thankful. God desires our hearts, our worship.

He knows what He's doing when He loves us unconditionally. He knows our limitations, our humanness, and when we cry out to Him, He is pleased. Scripture says that when we offer our bodies as living sacrifices, that is our spiritual worship. Giving the whole of our lives. I commit to giving God just that, the whole of my life, and I know that I'm not always going to. I know that I'm going to fall short, I know that will make my song sad, I know I'm going to forget God's character. But what a grace! And that I live by, no matter how humanly crazy it sounds.

Not a gift to understand fully, or to shake off nonchalantly, or to march forward defiantly. It is a gift to humbly fall down, to lay crowns at the feet of Jesus, and to live in gratitude. My life as worship. To humbly cry as David 'Lord have mercy!' And to humbly know He hears that cry. Then I begin to replace my vocabulary of 'try', 'harder', 'do your best'.. with 'posture', 'faith', 'worship', 'gratitude'.

My sacrifice is a broken and contrite heart and I transform and mold that, with the help of the Great Perfecter, into worship.

Life as worship.