Worship

We were doing a bible study about the word “Worship” for the last two weeks in chapel. This has been one of those pivotal teachings for me.  Are you ready for this? This is really cool. I have a lot of thoughts on this so I will share in installments. Feel free please to comment back.

The meaning of the word “Worship”:

In the Greek the most common word for Worship is proskuneo.  It means, “I got down on my knee to do obeisance, to worship”. Pretty straight forward, but it is when we break the word apart that it really gets interesting.

The first part of the word is Pro.. from which we of course get our pronoun “Pro”. It means

- to lean towards, to KISS.

- To move towards to interface with.

- Literally, moving toward a goal or destination with the expectation of reciprocity, That is, it suggests the cycle of initiation and response

So we ask ourselves,” What is a kiss?” Well, I think of it as something denoting affection and giving, a sense of intimacy and relationship. It carries with it a feeling of reciprocation, of trust, of giving and receiving in an intimate way. I note that the meaning here in prosduneo is an action, a moving, a pointing toward the one to be kissed. With it is the feeling of bowing down and giving honor and obedience and subservience to the one who is worshiped, but in an affectionate and trusting way with a relationship implied strongly. They idea of taking hold of the feet, of an intimate worship, not one from afar off.

The second part of the word brings this all into focus in the strangest way. It is Kuon which means a dog…. Literally.

Okay, let’s put this together. So, worship is to move towards and kiss lavishly and humbly as a dog. Get that minds picture. Think about it. How does a dog worship his master? What is implied in this relationship between kissing and fawning and a dog? I think of a dog, now we are talking about a well-trained dog here who has formed a true bond, with his master:

-He trusts him utterly, 
-He looks to the master for all of his needs
-He takes incredible joy in the presence of his master, in fact would rather be with him than anywhere else,
-He delights in doing the masters will
-His affection is expressed exuberantly with total abandonment and is so excited to be in his masters presence that he cannot contain himself. He doesn’t just want to be with his master, he wants to be up on him and in his face, kissing him and whining in excitement that the master is there paying attention to hm. 
-and completely and confidently expects full reciprocation for his affection, and receives that affection with great joy.
- He humbly rolls around on the ground in submission, not thinking or even desiring to be the master or be in charge but just to have the master acknowledge him and love on him.
- He will die without hesitation for his master.
- He will guard and protect his master.

Well, you get the picture. I am sure that you can think of some things of your own. As I have looked at this illustration, within the meaning of the word it brings a lot of diverse concepts to the surface of my mind.

The first is how unabashedly a dog loves. I ask myself frequently, (and I am sure many of us do) do I really, really love God? I have tended to beat myself up over that one for many years. Of course I have tended to beat myself up over a lot of things. Guilt and shame, rather than conviction (which I think of as clearly seeing my sin, my failings and desiring to change) that is where Satan likes to keep us. 1 John 4:18-19 says “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us” For some strange unknown reason I have always felt guilty that I cannot just love God with all my heart. That I, in fact, struggle with loving Him over self. I struggle with loving others over self. I struggle even with loving myself.

The dog however doesn’t struggle with that, he just loves, he reciprocates with lavish devotion the love that the master gives him. If that is what it is to worship then I don’t do it very much and maybe that is the key to a lot of my struggles, my wrestling’s with myself.  It all makes sense. If we are created to worship, to give God glory then in doing so we would find healing to what ails us. So, what can I see that would come out of a habit of truly worshiping God, of purposely coming into His presence with thanksgiving, to focus on how great and wonderful He is rather than on what I can get from Him; to have a thankful joyous heart, as it says in Ps 92:2 “Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving in our hearts; let us shout with songs of praise to Him.” 

The following are some of the things that He has shown me so far that come out of having a spirit of and a practice of worshiping God:

1. I struggle with a bitter heart, a heart that stumbles into being easily hurt and resentful. If I practiced worshiping God, instead of whining about all my little hurts I would naturally practice that with other people. I would see the good in them, I would praise them more readily instead of criticizing.

Joe and I used to really struggle with saying kind and uplifting, complimentary things to one another. It was crazy how hard it was. We used to say, how can we learn to do this instead of getting angry with one another? How can we learn to continually build the other up instead of always pointing out what they do wrong? I think this is a common struggle because every single marriage class or seminar we took gave the suggestion of writing out the good things you see in your spouse and of leaving them notes telling them of ways that you appreciate them. If it is pretty much universally seen as something that needs to be taught then I think that we all struggle with this. Perhaps if we spent more time praising and worshiping God than we do asking Him for things and telling Him of all our sorrows that would translate into how we treat each other also. Just a thought.

2. I also have been working on this thing of being real. We have been having a lot of discussion about that at Northwood. How to be real with others, not putting on a Christian act, and letting them be real with you and getting into the down and dirty of their lives and walking through each other’s valleys, bearing one another’s burdens. Somehow I think a spirit of worship also translates into this area.  If I am practicing worshiping God then I am in His presence, focused on Him, receiving from Him rather than telling Him. He is feeding love and joy and affirmation back into me and I am receiving it with gladness, not saying, no, I am not worthy but just receiving with open arms straight on. That attitude has to translate into and open heart, one that is able to be real because it is strong in knowing that God loves me. And if I am strong in God’s love then I am strong in loving others. If I can come boldly and confidently into God’s presence then I can stand beside my brother with love and total acceptance also as she or he goes through a hard times. And I can trust God to be the one to fix them, not me.

3. It also comes into the struggle with being humble. We struggle with “giving up” pride because we don’t fill that hole, or let God fill it. We see humility as something smaller and lesser. But, if humility is just absolute devotion and totally abandoned love to the One that is worthy of all love and adoration and who poor’s back into us far more than we can ever give up then the act of Worshiping, truly worshiping is going to most naturally lead to a humble heart in practice.

So, I have purposed to open my prayers with a time of just thanking God. I have started  my days and ended my days with praying some praise Psalms back to Him. I stand in excited anticipation to see how much God is going to expand my heart, teach me to have a gentle and forgiving spirit, change my thinking and make me whole, just be doing what He created me to do, to worship Him.