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Topic: Worship (05/03/04)
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TITLE: Worship - our destiny By Stanley McMahon 05/06/04 |
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Where does that aching in our hearts to come from? You know, the one that causes us to look up to sky on a starry night and wonder? The one that makes us say in the agony of our darkest night, “I will not let you go until You bless me…”?
A long time ago, a man was asked what he wanted. The man in question was a king; the question was posed by the King of kings. Solomon could have had anything he wanted. What he did ask for shows us his heart. He asked for wisdom. He got it, and much more besides. He became a sage, an architect, a judge, a landscape gardener, a philosopher and in the middle of all his projects, a writer.
He called himself “The Preacher” and set himself a goal. He was going to explore the length and breadth of life itself. He was trying to prove to everyone, maybe himself included, that life without God was meaningless. He wanted to show us that at the end of the day, the only thing worth doing was worship. As usual, he succeeded.
He split into project into two parts – Life Under the Sun (Part One) and Life Under the Son (Part Two).
His study was exhaustive and, by the sounds of it, exhausting. He permitted himself every experience he could think of. He never let up once – all in a bid to see if it was possible to live a fully satisfying life without reference to God.
At a certain point it seems he just couldn’t keep it to himself. He gave a clue that his findings weren’t going to be totally depressing. We find it in chapter 3 of his musings. We call his journal, Ecclesiastes. He had just finished writing about times and seasons for everything when he lifted back the curtains for a brief moment and said, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has put eternity in the heart of man…”
So that’s what it is! That aching has a face and a name. Its name is eternity and when I look into the face, I see that I recognise it. It’s the face of God. He has put a desire to worship Him into all our hearts; it’s a longing for Him, a hankering after His presence. We are all seekers. If we have wisdom, we will listen to the Preacher. After all, he was ranked world number one in the wisdom ratings. He went to the trouble of going through all our common answers. Work doesn’t satisfy, sleep doesn’t satisfy, food and drink, not even sex – he really pushed the boat out when it came to that!
The longing is worship and only worship will do. It’s at the core of our beings. Everything else we do is what the apostle Paul calls “Wood, hay and stubble”. Only by directing our thoughts and ultimately by dedicating our lives to God, will we ever find what we were created for. Worship.