A Heart of Worship

When I quit my job to become a full-time writer, I calculated very carefully exactly how much I had in financial resources and how long it would last at various levels of comfort. Seven months later, God has blessed me so much that I’m actually worth more now than I was when I quit my job, even though at the time of this writing, I have sold none of my work. I was starting to praise God for this when I found out but felt it wasn’t quite right. I prayed about it and feel that my praise didn’t come from the right motivation.

God is good. He wants only good things for us and will give us what is best for us. He always has our best interests in mind. When we get good things, it makes Him happy, just as when you give a gift that makes the receiver happy, you’re happy, too. It is right that we should praise God for what He gives us in our daily lives. What is not right is when that is the only or core reason why we praise Him. Praising God only for what He gives us implies that if we don’t get what we want, we will offer no more praise.

A child asking for something from his parents may or may not get it, depending largely on what it is and the parents’ ability to grant the request. If the child asks for something simple, such as an apple, he’ll probably get it because it is healthy and good for the child to have. If he asks for more cookies, he may not get them because those are not in the child’s best interests, even though the child thinks they are. Whether the child gets what he wants or not, he should still love his parents. It is right for the child to thank the parents if they give him what he wants, but that should not be the only way love is shown.

Likewise, our main reason for praising God should be out of love for Him, not for what He can offer us, but for who He is and how much He loves us. Even if the rest of our lives were miserable, God is still good and worthy of our praise, for He has offered Jesus to die for us so that we can spend an eternity – eternity! – in Heaven, a place so wonderful we can’t imagine it. Even better, we get to spend that time in the presence of God, not separated by any barriers. We’ll be able to look at Him, talk to Him, learn from Him, and actually know Him. He loves us more than we can possibly fathom, loves us in spite of how many times we’ve chosen ourselves over Him, been ashamed of Him, or cursed Him for not giving us what we want. It is for these reasons that God should be praised. God is good, and that is reason enough for our worship.