Worship is central to who we are as disciples of Christ.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritualact of worship. ~ Romans 12.1
Our entire lives are to be acts of worship. In church and during the week, inside our homes and outside in God’s creation, serving the homeless and cleaning my toilet, I am to be offering myself to God in worship. No matter what the task.
I have written about worship here before. Worship is part of our job as priests. We are to echo the praise and adoration of all creation back to the Creator. People are the only part of creation who are able to love God back, who are able to give voice to the wordless praise of all creation.
Worship.
My heart has been aching over this for several months now.
A large part of who I am is a musician. Music has been a part of my identity as long as I can remember, and a huge part of that musical identity has, from as early as grade school, been to participate in leading my Family in worship to our Father.
Then I heard God ask me to give that up.
I wasn’t sure I had heard Him correctly. Isn’t this the worship He has always asked of me? To use the gift of music that He gave me to serve His people?
Though I balked, I truly did understand what God was asking of me. He was asking me to stop using my music in our church worship service in order to spend more time with my little ones.
He was asking me to give up using my music as my current act of worship.
This made my heart ache to its very core. How would I worship now? In what aspect could my life still be an act of worship?
Then I listened to a video of Sally Clarkson, from I Take Joy, talk about laying the foundation for your children, for your home. She spoke a truth that I should have understood, one that instantly shot peace through my core.
Raising my children is an act of worship.
My whole life is to be an act of worship. If God is calling me to give up one particular way of worshiping Him, then what is to take its place?
Being with my little ones.
I breathe and think through this a little more deeply.
God gave me these babies. He gaveme these babies and asked me to raise them into people who bear His image.
Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. ~ Psalms 127.3
Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates… ~ Deuteronomy 11.18-20
Aha.
My children are a gift to me and my husband, primarily to me and my husband. Our most precious task right now is fixing God’s Words in their hearts, setting them on the doorframes and gates of our home.
Raising my little ones is my current act of worship.
Suddenly, my heart is filled with peace and joy.
No more aching, only a sense of gratitude that God has given me such a beautiful way to worship Him.
I am filled with a sense of the immensity and importance of this act of worship, filled with the urgency that nothing should stand in the way of this worship during this season of my life.
Suddenly, I am not filled with loss for the act of worship I am giving up (for the present) but am filled with contentment for the fullness of the years of worship ahead of me.
May I be intentional about building our home on His Words. May I be purposeful about fixing God’s Words in the hearts and minds of my little ones. May I throw all my being into building our home on Christ Himself. May I let no other good thing distract me from this beautiful worship, from this making our lives sacred.
This. This is my living sacrifice, my sacrifice of praise. In this breathtaking and wondrous season of my life, this is my spiritual act of worship.
Lovely thoughts, friend. So many things that seem important in our lives as Christians can easily take us away from our primary jobs. I’ve learned a lot of things are less important than parenting my babies – volunteering for church events and activities, attending Sunday evening church, etc. I don’t want to use this as an excuse, but I need to see my stage of life for what it is and not take on more than my family needs.
Truly a BEAUTIFUL post! Wonderfully eye opening! Thank you for sharing…
This morning your post inspires me to SLOW DOWN and be more intentional about my actions involving my young children! You are so right! This made me realize I was rushing through my to-do list and missing opportunities to teach my children about God. I love what you said about letting “no other good thing distract me.” WOW! By trying to do too much and getting so irritated and stressed, I’m setting a bad, not a good, example for them! Right after I read your post I served breakfast to my little 2 year old. Instead of just saying a quick prayer ( checking off another item on the to-do list so I could get to the next thing) I sat down, looked into her eyes and had a conversation with her about God and why we pray. I’m embarrassed to say I have never done that with her! What an important lesson you have reminded me of this morning!!! I’m going to try to do better! Thank you Elizabeth!!
Thank you, all, for your encouragement. This is such a difficult thing, especially when so many around me do not understand the depth of my commitment to my little ones and feel slighted when I choose to spend time with my family rather than them. It is hard, too, when our churches are asking young parents to do activity after service opportunity after volunteer event! Let’s keep encouraging each other to keep our families first! 🙂
What a beautiful act of worship…listening and obeying His voice to love and raise your children…different seasons may involve different forms of worship…I’m realizing it is my heart attitude toward Him in all that I do…blessings, Elizabeth 🙂
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