Empowered by the Spirit

I meant to post this Aug. 17:

 

I am grateful beyond words for the love of singing I inherited from my Mom. 

 

As best I can tell, the passion that pushes me to take the risk of standing in front of family and friends and sometimes even strangers to raise my voice in song skipped a generation. 

 

Little thrills me more than to know Mom’s great-grandkids include some who share that passion. My heart rejoiced to have Heidi join me Sunday at Whaley UMC in singing praise to God in honor of the 85th birthday of Mom/Grandma Alice. 

 

Also this excerpt from the Aug. 16 commentary in Nicky Gumbel's Bible in One Year reading plan helped me understand some of my feelings of joy and fulfillment in praising the Lord: 

Many years ago, I was helped in my understanding of worship through C.S. Lewis’s explanation in his Reflections on the Psalms.

He wrote: ‘The most obvious fact about praise… strangely escaped me… I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise… the world rings with praise... walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game – praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare books, even sometimes politicians and scholars…

‘I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It’s not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.’

In other words, worship is the consummation of joy. Our joy is not complete until it is expressed in worship. It is out of his love for you that God created you to worship. According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, humankind’s ‘chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever’.