Worship Like Mary

A beautiful thought on worship from Tim Hughes in his book for worship leaders, Here I Am To Worship:

'As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and said "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'" Luke 10:38-42

It's not every day that the Savior of the world pops in for tea. Mary and Martha must have been very excited. Straightaway Martha swang into action and exerted herself in all the preparations at hand. While she was rushing around doing all the work, her sister, Mary, just sat at Jesus' feet, hanging on His every word. Surely Mary was in the wrong here! Wasn't she being selfish and lazy? Eventually Martha lost her cool and turned to Jesus for help. Her question was brilliantly crafted and deserving of all sympathy and respect in the world: "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?"

The answer Martha received must have taken her by surprise. Jesus tenderly pointed out that she missed the point. The keyword in this passage is "distracted": "But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made." Martha thought she was doing the right and honorable thing. There was work to be done, and she was going to do it. By working hard, she would demonstrate to Jesus how much she loved Him.

However Jesus did not desire this from her. He desired Martha's intimacy--her company. In this short story, it was Mary who chose the right thing--the one thing that was needed most. She sat at Jesus' feet and enjoyed spending time with Him, learning from Him and discovering more about Him. Jesus was delighted by this response. Mary chose to watch and fix her gaze on Jesus before she chose to work.

As worshippers, we must take note of this lesson. We are very good at doing things--organizing events, planning services and attending prayer meetings. These tasks and events are important and worthy, bu they must never come at the expense of knowing God. . .
Before we play our songs and commit to serving Jesus, we need to adore and cherish Him. Sometimes amid the pressure to succeed we lose this focus. A passage of Scripture that expresses beautifully the heart of a radical worshipper is found in Psalm 27:4:

"One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and seek him in his temple."

Praise Habit: Child-like Praise

This past year, God has done more to work in my heart and mind on the topic of worship than at any other time in my life, and I can tell that He's still not done there. A while back, I was reading Praise Habit by David Crowder, and one main section in that book jumped out at me:

"We naturally understand praise. As kids, we talk about our favorite toys; later we praise pizza and foot ball players. Kids just know how to enjoy things. They give themselves fully to whatever has a hold on them. Remember as children how we would fearlessly hold up our favorite toy and petition anyone who was in close proximity to behold it?

'Look, Mom, look!'

We instinctively knew what it was to praise something. It's always been in us. We were created for it. It's a part of who we are. As kids, we were fabulous at it. But as adults we become self-conscious and awkward. Something gets lost. i think we do it to each other. At some point, I hold the toy up exultantly and you comment that it looks ridiculous to hold the toy up in such a way. It's not a cool toy like I believed it to be. It is worn and tired, you point out. And we slowly chip away at each other's protective coatings of innocence until one day we wake up and notice we are naked and people are pointing. . .

Think back. Try hard to recall what praise in its undiluted purity felt like. When you would dance with your arms fully extended rather than elbows bent, folded closely to your person in such a guarded fashion. Remember how effortlessly we sang the praises of things we enjoyed? It was so easy and fluid and natural. What if this kind of praise freely leaked from us in delightful response to God? What if life were like that all the time. What if we were so moved by who God is, what He's done, what He will do, that praise, adoration, worship, whatever, continuously careened in our heads and pounded in our souls? What if praise were on the tip of our tongues like a loaded weapon in the hands of a trigger-happy meth addict and every moment might just set us off? What makes us think our time on earth should be any different? What keeps it from being so?"