Worship is more than Love

Ever think that worship is an antedote for loneliness?

Here are three things about worship that I think counter the ache of loneliness.

1.  Recognize worship as the legitimate sense of mystery and the rightful expression of awe.  If we reflect on our own pursuits, for example, in the area of academia,  because of our desire to know - we can look at ourselves and rather than see God's hand with us, with think we accomplished everything on our own. The heart of worship suggests that even our very own life is a gift.

2. This kind of Appreciative love goes beyond itself and gives to others. If it were not for Appreciative love for God, one could never love his or her enemy or even love for another’s sake. Because of our love for God we endure all things. And from the love with which He enriches us flows a love that is not our own .It comes from a deposit He makes in our hearts from which we draw.

3.Appreciative love binds the worshipping life into a single focus, touching upon every sense of life itself. Worship brings the coalescence of essence. For instance, musicians are "persons" first before they are musicians and a life that seeks fulfillment in its expertise before it finds fulfillment in its being is bound to feel fragmented.

The songwriter beautifully blends these truths, base on the forty-second Psalm -

As the deer panteth for the water,
So my soul longeth after Thee,
You alone are my heart’s desire
And I long to worship Thee.
You alone are my strength and shield
To you alone may my spirit yield;
You alone are my heart’s desire,
and I long to worship Thee

 http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=JE12CFNU

The Gift of Love

A little while ago I introduced the first of Four Loves by C.S. Lewis which was Need-love and today is the second love which is Gift-love.

The flip side of Need-love is Gift-love. This kind of love pours itself out in generosity, love, kindness, mercy, grace, and myriad other acts or thoughts of giving.

There is an ancient story that comes out of Buddhism that tells of a woman who wanted to know how she could rid herself of her miseries and her bereavements.

She was told by the sage to go from door to door and when she found a home where there were no worries, to ask there for a morsel of grain

She returned a long while later saying that she had not found a single home that fit that description

In fact, she had become so involved in hearing of the heartaches of others that she had forgotten her own. The moral of the story – in giving you forget your own need

Now, life is far more complicated than to be summarily epitomized as a journey to alleviate hurt, but I think you get the point.

The Loves we need...

In the introduction of his book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis points our that there are four concepts that try to make a connection between love and pleasure and wonders what binds them and what separates them.

The first concept he introduces is Need-love

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, he believes there is a process – from birth to maturity – physiological needs, safety needs, love needs, esteem needs and need for self-actualization.
However, the difference in our Christian worldview and Maslow lies in the foundation – understanding who we are results in dramatically different solutions for loneliness.

This recent video is a reflection of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - check out the comments on the site and its interesting to see the comments from the Islamic community.

A greater pursuit in life than love...

Two of the most moving stories in the New Testament will give us a clue that there is a greater pursuit in life than love.

1. The story of the Samaritan woman by the well is one who lived a life of quiet desperation.
     •Jesus’ disarmingly gentle triumph in getting her to admit that her   pathetic state of rejection was the chief of her woes
     •Looming behind her nervousness and her welter of religious questions was her greatest heartache – her loneliness

2. The second story took place in the home of a Pharisee named Simon.
     •Simon – no courtesies offered a guest were given to Jesus – no embrace, no water to wash his feet, no towel to dry them, no offer of refreshment.

Listen to the words of Luke 7:36-43:

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 

A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.

As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

  “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

     •Woman – dared to come uninvited, gave to Jesus the best of her possessions, fell prostrate at His feet – washing them with her tears and drying them with her hair.

 
There are similar clues in both stories to the answer of the heart’s struggle of loneliness and the longing for the beyond – let's take a look at C.S. Lewis' concept of the four loves in order to put the human existence factor on the table first, before dealing with the beyond.