When We Worship

Have you not observed how difficult it is to really worship in spirit?

A thousand duties come clamoring for attention, some of them important and some trifling.

A good lady of unquestioned piety once declared: “When I settle myself in the sanctuary on Sunday morning for worship I am disturbed with: The pot roast!—did I turn that oven low enough? Or, I wonder if I turned off the burner under the coffee pot.  Then a look at Johnnie and I am reminded that I should have had his hair cut yesterday.  If Mrs. Blank and her family are here this morning, I should invite them home for dinner, but my house—the children did not get their room in very good order.”

This good lady is not the only one who is thus plagued while in the sanctuary for worship of the Almighty.

We have one hour on Sunday morning for worship.  We herd our well-scrubbed brood into the sanctuary, each one placed so that he can make the least disturbance possible by quarreling with another one of our lively family.  We fall into the pew and look about us.  There is Mrs. Jones, she does look pale this morning, but no wonder after all she has been through.  There is that new family from the old mill house, dressed “fit to kill.”  Everyone knows he makes such a small wage; I’d think she would be more considerate.

And we are supposed to be in the act of worshiping God, the Being to whom we must give account of every idle moment.

Distracting thoughts come tumbling over each other when a soul goes to the place of worship.  Often a weariness settles upon the soul until concentrated thoughtful worship is almost impossible.

The Master asked the disciples in the Garden the night of the betrayal: “What, could ye not watch with me on hour?”  It could be that the Lord is speaking to you and to me, preoccupied worshipers, lest the good seed of the kingdom fall among the thorns and it be choked.

It is highly probable were we to be the judge of others who were guilty of such irreverence we would be very harsh with them, but we excuse ourselves, we make allowance and explain.  We then go home at the end of the worship and wonder why the minster was so dull this morning.  I guess we should have changed preachers this conference.

The disciples missed their greatest hour preoccupied, asleep, when they should have been praying.  Many another disciple has missed the great hour of spiritual blessing by preoccupation.  In order to avoid irreverent attitudes in the worship hour—

1. Rise early enough Sunday morning so that there is time to arrive in the sanctuary well ahead of the worship hour.
2. Seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the care and guidance of the children in the hour of worship.
3. “Enter in his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”
4. Think of the many who are denied the hour of worship in the sanctuary of God’s house because of illness or injustice of others.
5. Heart preparation the evening before will go a long way toward entering the sanctuary with joy and gladness.
6. Enter heartily into the worship, the singing, the reading, and give yourself to prayer when the pastor prays.
7. God is in His holy temple let all the earth keep silent before Him.
8. Live in His presence throughout the week and He will go with you to the sanctuary on Sunday, and your “meditation of Him shall be sweet."

--Oliver G. Wilson