Sunday, November 18th, ends the teaching series Blue Like Jazz with a look at Worship. I like what Miller says in Chapter 17, “Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder.” (p. 205)
Worship has two dimensions private and public; it’s in our private time of worship that we devote our hearts to God and it’s in our public/communal worship where we demonstrate our hearts to others. Remember whatever we value close to our hearts and spend the majority of time in we become. For me, I don’t spend enough time in private worship of God---how about you?
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I do worship. I worship certain television programs, sports, getting together with friends---some noble entreats...some not so noble. Yet, there is that nagging truth...”whatever we value...spend the majority of time in we become...”
I muse a lot these days about spiritual things and like Miller often my mind doesn’t understand, but “my heart feels wonder in abundant satisfaction.” (p. 205) One of the key “Millerisms “that struck me in BLJ came from this chapter---“there are things you cannot understand, and you must learn to live with this. Not only must you learn to live with this, you must learn to enjoy this. And so it goes....please believe me; I’m trying to learn this thing called humility. How about you?
This I Believe
“At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our (my) theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay...I don’t think there is any better worship than wonder.” (p.206) God does have things figured out. Amen, Mr. Miller....and Selah
Grace,
Bob
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