Time of Preparation
Begin by taking inventory of your surroundings. Are things in your vicinity conducive to a time of personal worship? Are there any changes or adjustments (turning off tech, making yourself comfortable) you need to make before you begin?
When you are ready, take some time to sit in silence and prepare your heart for worship. Ask God to clear away any distractions that might keep you from being truly present in this moment.
Encounter With God
In this first movement, we simply seek to see God for who He is: the One worthy of worship.
“All the earth worships you;
they sing praises to you,
sing praises to your name.”
—Psalm 66:4 (NRSVUE)
An anonymous ancient Irish poems begins with this memorable line:
“Only a fool would fail to praise God in his might,
when the tiny mindless birds praise him in their flight.”
The idea that creation praises God is woven all through Scripture. We are reminded in both the Old and New Testaments that the created order itself exists to worship the Creator. Jesus himself said that the rocks would cry out in praise if we don’t.
But how does that happen? What does it mean to say that “all the earth worships you?” What I love about the Irish verse is its suggestion that birds, for example, simply praise God “in their flight.” In other words, they worship God simply by doing what they were created to do. That’s a wonderful thought for us to sit with—that the act of simply being who we were made to be is a worshipful act.
I once heard a pastor call creation a “symphony of praise.” What a powerful truth that it’s a symphony of being rather than a symphony of striving. The sounds of worship that are raised are not forced, they do not require anything in creation to be anything other than what they are. The simple truth that they exist and function as they should is enough to be considered “praise.”
What might that mean for us?
TRADITIONAL SONG OF ENCOUNTER: All Creatures of Our God and King (lyrics here)