Worship

I've just read a blog post over at InAMirrorDimly. A simple reminder about worship. It says 'I won’t find anything in this world that can replace the peace and joy that comes with God’s Spirit. Worship opens us to him so he can begin to work in and through us.'

This really resonates with me – it’s a timely reality check: that we are made to worship God and that I am ‘only in my right mind when worshipping Him’. The dictionary definition for ‘right mind’ is ‘all there, compos mentis, healthy, in good health, in one’s right mind, lucid, reasonable, right, right-minded, sound, together, well-adjusted, whole. It also means wholesome, all there, balanced, both oars in water, commonsensical, compos mentis, discerning, fair-minded, fit, having all marbles, healthy, in one's right mind, intelligent, judicious, levelheaded,logical, lucid, moderate, normal, of sound mind,oriented, playing with full deck, prudent, rational,right, right-minded, sagacious, sage, sapient,self-possessed, sensible, sober, sound, steady,together*, well, wise’.

I love the implication in that: that when I am NOT worshipping Him, I am not in my ‘right’ mind – I am off focus, askew, awry; in fact, I am insane, unsound and irrational. Not something I want to be!

I’ve recently moved to a church with a focus on liturgy and formality – not my recent experience and not my comfort zone either.What I need to remember when I go to the church service is that I go to WORSHIP. So, with the first hymn, I need to remember to focus on God, to worship HIM, to concentrate on the words of praise even though the tune may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable.

2 Timothy 1:6-8 says,( in another context) in the King James Version, that God has given us a 'sound mind'. Other versions translate it as 'self-discipline, discipline, or self-control'. I need to discipline myself to 'enter His courts with thanksgiving in my heart, enter His courts with praise...'

Then I can truly be of ‘sound mind’.