Worship : Chapter 9

I wrote the following in 11th grade for my bible class and I thought I'd share it with you. For class we had to read a chapter out of this book called "Finding Faith" by Brian D. McLaren and then answer some response questions replying what we got out of the chapter. This is what I got out of chapter nine.

I have experienced God through Ritual, Nature, and Art/Worship the most out of the five experiences. I have examples from all of the three above which I will discuss in another question.

Worship/Art: I am interested in further pursuing worship and art. It’s hard to do something you love and still keep God involved sometimes. For me, my personal experience in this is baseball. I absolutely positively without-a-doubt love baseball. I love playing it and I enjoy watching it (hence the die hard Twins fan). There were times were I would think that I loved baseball more than I loved God. I realized then how much I was grabbing onto a worldly desire and possession. God is so much better than any worldly possession of desire. I think so many professional athletes play for only for themselves so much, and that they only play to earn the big contract to spend on other worldly possessions. Other athletes who play for the love of the game, which are a select few, are the ones who have the good attitude and love playing the game. I think Morneau said it best when discussing his contract when he said “That my agents job, I just want to play baseball.” Wow, sorry totally getting off topic. Recently, in the beginning of baseball season, Mr. Callahan talks about who we represent on and off the field. He told us that the biggest thing we represent as part of this team is God. He said how you play out there in the field is an act of worship. My mom always tells me to do the best I can in everything even if I don’t like it (homework). I think God wants you to be successful in everything you do, but to always do it not for worldly glory, but for the Lord.

Ritual: Something that stuck out to me when it talked about rituals was a story about when I first started working out on a consistent basis. People say it takes at least 21 days to get into a continuous habit. I’m not sure that this section is also considered to be habitual but I only worked out if other people were working out to keep me company. After awhile I would start working out by myself cause because it became a habit. I’ll admit it was harder with nobody around to push me to my limits but it still became a habit. Another time for me was trying to get me to read the Bible everyday, it was hard for me because I would always find an excuse to not do it and it was hard for me to keep it a habit. Then someone became my accountability partner and reminded me a lot to read my bible everyday, it was very encouraging for me and really enjoyed it. This person was somewhat of an odd source for being such an encouragement for me but I really appreciated it and reading my bible everyday eventually became a habit for me. He also talks about how habits are too much and how when we do them everyday they just get old and you don’t tend to learn anything from them. That is true in some respects, going to church every Sunday can sometimes be a drag, I'll be honest. Working out every day seemed to do nothing for me, but when you look at the end result, from the first time you worked out to the last time, you can really really see a difference. I think if you have the right mind set and want to expand in your relationship with God and church then it won't become such a drag.

Nature: I like taking pictures a lot, and every time I take nature shot and analyze it I can always see God’s beautiful design in this world. There is this spot at my cabin (which I’m not exactly fond of) that I can see all the way down the lake and all the trees and sunsets and the way the light comes from it is just marvelous. A moment happened today when I was procrastinating before dinner and not doing homework. I was looking at Brittany Brackett’s Facebook pictures from her recent mission trip to somewhere and it had this picture of some flowers in a sketchy part of town. Under the picture was a caption “God’s beauty in an ugly place.” It struck me as that God is everywhere, even in the most desolate places.