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Last Sunday was a great day for us at Ball Camp. In each of our services, I had a real sense of God’s presence. As is often the case for me, the sense was most prominently embodied by you and your commitment to be there for worship, fellowship, and learning week after week. I am not sure if I have said that to you before, but you need to know that. Your faithful commitment to be present for worship and Sunday School is a vital and important part of what God is doing at Ball Camp. Your being there is not just significant for your growth and development; your presence makes an impact on the whole body.
I don’t say this to you to put you on the spot for those times when you could not be here, or to make you feel guilty for those times when you have been other places. In fact, I sometimes wonder if I say too little about the importance of attendance for just that reason. At the same time, I do want you to know that your being here is very important.
Your decision to be here is just that — your decision. It is a decision that each of us makes each week. When we make it, when we decide to be at worship on Sunday morning, that says something about our faithfulness. Our decision to be in worship says something about our willingness to believe that God will meet us in that hour and speak to us, touch us, hold us.
That does not happen in every worship service on every Sunday. There are those times when we go to worship and we come away not feeling anything special, spiritual or divine. We all have those Sundays and those services. Yet, we return to the house of God to gather with God’s people expecting, believing, keeping the faith.
There are days in each of our lives that are less than ideal. We all have those days that do not meet our expectations of what we want our lives to be. When these kinds of days turn into weeks, we find ourselves approaching despair. Yet, we still find our way to worship.
Sometimes we are not here because things are going all wrong in our lives and it is difficult to believe that one more worship service, one more hour in a sanctuary will improve anything. At other times in our lives, things are humming along just fine and we cannot imagine how an hour out of our Sunday spent in church could improve on what we are already experiencing. Both of these notions forget that God has made each one of us for His glory. In the day and in the night, God is worthy of worship. In the midst of the storm and in the warmth of the sun, God is worthy of praise. When life is less than we hope and when it is more than we thought possible, God is worthy of our praise. When our joy is overflowing and when our trouble is more than we can bear, God is worthy of our praise.
We have been created to worship. We will worship. Just as we will breathe and sleep, we will worship. The question is will we worship the God who created us.
Joy and peace,
Ed
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