Through the FIre

"Worship is the heartbeat of God." -Bobby Moore

My church's college group recently began a series on worship - the nature of it, why we do it, and how we do it. It's a basic Christian necessity to worship and worship wholeheartedly, even when we don't feel like it.

Growing up in a Christian school, I heard many talks on worship, how it's important, how to "fake it 'til you make it." I'd heard messages before that mentioned how King David would worship, even in the midst of struggle. You can hear the struggle in his writing (Psalm 13, for example). I've looked at stories of people worshiping God and encountering incredible oppression for doing so, like Paul and Daniel. But I never really thought of worship the way I did when I heard the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo last night. I'd heard that story dozens of times before and have seen the Veggie Tales version even more than that.

While King Nebuchadnezzar was in power, he ordered a giant statue be made for worship. When trumpets sounded and music played, the people would gather and bow down and worship this idol. Rack, Shack, and Benny (for spelling's sake), followed God's commands, so they refused to bow down. The King was not very happy about that. He ordered they be thrown into a fiery furnace to die if they continued to refuse. Still, they did not bow down. So they were sentenced to death. But here's where the story takes a drastic turn - they STILL worshiped God, even as they were being thrown into the "fireplace of doom." God sent a divine being to their rescue, and the fire didn't singe even a hair on their heads. The King saw this and had them released, proclaiming THEIR God was the one true God and He alone should be praised.

God is brought glory when we worship Him. But, when we worship, we are also glorified through Him. Rack, Shack, and Benny praised God, even to death, and when they were saved, King Nebuchadnezzar promoted them to power.

When we worship God through our struggles, He sends help to sustain us. We see the fire. We're in the middle of the flames and we can touch the embers, but we're not burned. When we worship, God is there to protect us from the pit of fire we can see and feel, but, like Rack, Shack, and Benny, not a hair on our head will be scorched. And not only will he sustain us, but He will elevate us. He will bless us beyond our imagination. And it was only yesterday that I saw this in my own life.

Last week, there was an accident at school and I saw more than I had desired to maintain my sanity. The trauma was nearly unbearable as I struggled from day to day to keep myself from bursting in to tears for no apparent reason. The whole event came at a really unfortunate time for me, since I was still processing some other things from earlier in the month. But worship has always been a saving grace for me, a sort of sustenance. The trek through this last week was a slow one and it involved little sleep and plenty of struggle, but at the end of it came more than I could've dreamed.

I doubt my abilities. Often. And that may or may not be an understatement. But my teachers have this crazy amount of belief and trust in me. Why? I have no idea. But they tend to believe in me more than I do myself. It was evidenced when I was called in to talk to the head of my program about something. She sat me down and said, "The 3rd year students will be leaving, and we have this practicum assignment that will need to be taken over. You'd train for it during Spring, and next Fall, it's yours if you want it. Some other teachers and I talked about students who we thought could handle it and your name came up." Ummm... What? Me? It was the sunshine at the end of a dreary thunderstorm of events. I'm still having a hard time believing it, and I don't know that I will until I get there. But in giving up my struggle this week to God, in praying for the persons involved in the accident, in talking with people who could support me through it, I found continuity of strength and elevation of esteem. God is glorified in me and through me. If worship is the heartbeat of God, and I'm His desire, then I am His heart.
I am His worship, and I will give me back to Him, because I was never mine to begin with.