Worship

Wednesday

Got up. Made porridge and sandwiches. Dressed. Took children to school. Went to Sainsburys. Came home. Resisted temptation to leave shopping on kitchen floor and unpacked bag after bag after bag of shopping. Listened to the Archers. Walked the dog. Fetched children from school. Cooked dinner. Took son to football training. Fetched son from football training. Watched TV. Went to bed. Fell in gratefully, relieved to have got through another day. Thank God.

Thank God for his gift of the Holy Spirit who gave me the courage to get out of bed this morning.

Thank God for quashing the unknowable fears that overtake my mind at the prospect of a trip to the supermarket.

Thank Jesus that his name, silently mouthed in the frozen foods aisle, is a refuge from terror which threatens.

Thank God for the wonder of his creation and the dog whose need for exercise forces me to step out of myself.

Thank God today for the violets, fragile delicate blooms, not intimidated by more powerful neighbours and hard winter conditions. Against the odds, they return renewed and beautiful, time after time, a triumph of hope over reality.

Thank God for the victories of the day, small, insignificant though they appear, they made the difference.

This then is my life today.

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-round life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

This then is my offering, my worship.

A litany of fears and anxieties; a shambling, pathetic offering to God.

I stand before him, a shuffling cripple, and say, ‘Take me as I am, I can come no other way.’ Weak and helpless, I can do no more, or no less, than call on him.

And in response he walks beside me, he holds my hand, he carries me. He wipes my tears and understands my fears - fears I don’t understand myself.

And he is triumphant. He turns my weakness into his strength. He offers hope that things can change.

Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God. Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my saviour and my God.

(Psalm 43:4-5)

(Romans 12:1 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 spiritual act of worship)