Worshipful Obedience

Last week Little Man and I read the story of David and Goliath together. It's one of his favourites and gets fairly frequent retellings in our home. I'm not quite sure what attracts him to the story since he doesn't quite understand the concept of Goliath getting killed, but something about it gets him. At any rate, as I was reading to him I caught something new (this is the advantage of reading Bible stories to your children--if you can't manage to squeeze in your own quiet time, you can still learn something). That day all David was doing was taking lunch to his brothers as his father requested. He didn't go visit the army because he had received a specific calling from God to go kill Goliath. He went because he was being obedient to his father in the small things. This is something I've been trying to learn the last few months, and something I've been writing about as well (though for the life of me I can't remember what post it was...maybe this one).

Just this Sunday, I was talking with our Sunday School class about hearing the Holy Spirit's voice. We were reading in Acts 13 and 14, about how the church in Antioch was worshiping the Lord when God told them to send Barnabas and Saul out from among them. We discussed how when our focus is on God and not on ourselves, when we practice moment-by-moment worship, we open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit's voice.

Then I ran across a blog by Ann Voskamp that started tying everything together for me (I know it seems like I'm rambling but I promise I have a point I will get to eventually--bear with me). She writes (and I'm jumbling her words here a bit, mea culpa):

Your father calls you. And if you can't hear him? ...[You're not where you're meant to be]... We want clarity--and God gives us a call. We want a road map--and God gives a relationship. We want answers--and God gives us His hand.

We cannot be in real relationship with God without the inevitable response of worship. When we worship, He tends to speak. And when He speaks, we must respond, taking the obedient next step, however small, however insignificant--taking lunch to our brothers, perhaps. Because sometimes, when we open ourselves up to the Lord through worship, through purposeful obedience, He puts us in the right place at the right time so that we might give Him even more glory.

It's Wednesday now and I started writing this blog on Sunday; it's taken me that long to finish up, not because I didn't know what I wanted to say but because life happens. Library books need to be returned; bloody noses occur; laundry needs to get folded; dog hair must be vacuumed. And each small moment is a choice that sometimes I forget I am making. As I give Littles the stink eye for waking his brother up at nap time, am I remembering to worship? Am I remembering that this too is a chance to be obedient? As I dig the wood-chips out of Tiny's mouth for the hundredth time, as I re-hang the hand towel that has been left beside the sink, as I scoop up dog poop in the back yard, am I remembering? Am I really holding onto His hand?

Because I might find that if my hand (dry from soap, chapped from the wind, smelly from diapers) is held in His (scarred and blood stained) I'm in the right place at the right time after all.