Every Step An ArrivalSample

True Worship

Probably the most unusual phrases in this psalm are “Drench the plowed fields, soak the dirt clods with rainfall as harrow and rake bring her to blossom and fruit” (Psalm 65:10, msg). The psalmist’s feeling is one of sheer abundance. He sees the year rising in the new life of spring as a queen crowned with the garlands of God, robed in the fresh new growth of the fields, and served by the flocks spread across hills and valleys. As we listen to the psalmist rhapsodize about these wonders, it would not be unusual to start wishing we were out there. 

Although this psalm says nothing directly about it, the time in which it was written was filled with warnings about the man who would substitute nature for the church and do his worshipping there rather than in the ritual of the temple or church. The impulse is modernized in the man who says that he can worship God better looking at a beautiful sunset than praying some antique prayers in a stuffy church. He may worship better, but odds are that he is not worshipping God but rather the sun or, more probably, his own feeling about the sun. 

Christian worship is the sanctification of time and space. That which we look at, live in, and treat casually in ordinary life is concentrated into the hour of Christian worship so that we see its ultimate and eternal meaning. Worship gives a heightened significance to the time and space of the ordinary world. No one could, nor would want to, live in the intense world of worship all the time. But worship does give a sharpness to everything the Christian does.

The Christian leaving the hour of worship knows that love, hope, faith, praise, blessing, and grace provide the fractional differences, in minute quantities, that make the eternal difference in life. The Christian at worship is like an aerial gymnast on a trapeze. She experiences the meaning of time and space. When she moves back into her ordinary universe, there will be sharpness and accuracy to her feelings and her actions that were not there before. 

When has an experience of worship changed how you related to others and God once it was over?

If you enjoyed this 5-day devotional from Eugene Peterson, be sure to check out Eugene's book, Every Step an Arrival .