I looked across the top of my bookshelves at home and took inventory of several pieces of, well things, things that my children made me either in school, vacation bible school, or children’s church. Things that in themselves have very little value compared to other things that are in my office, and yet my heart was overwhelmed with emotion as I held each piece with great appreciation. Why?
If you are a father, do you not like receiving tiny gifts from your children, even if you don’t know what to use the piece of clay pottery for? Why do you value it more than a pen from your insurance agent or a gift from a friend? If you are a mother, does not your heart find a greater joy in a handful of yellow dandelions from your little daughter, than in a bouquet of roses from a dinner guest?
Do these trivialities make you richer? Do you need them? Would you be imperfect without them? Yet you love them. Why? Because your children are “worshiping” you; because they are acknowledging your love, your goodness, and by doing so they are perfecting themselves–that is, developing along the lines of love rather than hate, thankfulness rather than ingratitude, and service rather than disloyalty. They are becoming more perfect and more happy children.
Just as you do not need more dandelions or hand made childhood pottery, neither does God need your worship. If their giving is a sign of your worth in your children’s eyes, then, are not prayer, adoration, and worship a sign of God’s worth in our eyes? If you need your children’s worship, why do you think God needs yours? If their worship is for their perfection, not yours, then may not your worship of Him be not for His perfection, but yours? Worship is your opportunity to express devotion, dependence, and love, and in doing that you make yourself happy? Full of Joy!
