
A cold wind froze faces and
whipped sea froth onto the sand. Welly boots filled with water as an unexpected
wave hit the paddlers, making them scream with shock. The wintry sun shone on
the snow dusted slopes of the mountain behind us, the tiny pilgrim’s chapel
visible at the peak where perhaps someone was lighting a candle and praying at
the same moment I lifted my face to the wide open sky and felt my heart fill
with what can surely only be called worship.

If ever I naturally lift my hands
up in prayer and praise without a trace of self-consciousness, it won’t be in a
church building and it won’t be in an ordered worship service, it will more
likely be out here in the wide open spaces where sky meets land and sea, where
the supreme power and beauty of nature declare God’s sovereignty and where raw
honesty of self can pour out unhindered.
With all the tarmac, sign posts,
fencing and man-made facilities gone, the beach is stark and wild. It’s a reminder
that human beings may impose themselves on a place but what we build so
confidently and with such self-assurance can be swept away in a moment. It’s a
picture of a landscape submitting to its true master and being stripped back to
an elemental state.
Standing out on the beach of our
own interior landscape, there is nothing between us and God that cannot be
swept away by the immense waves of his love which dramatically change the terrain.
It is a place where everything is exposed, we are simply ourselves and we can
experience the exhilaration of worship. Here, the moments may be fleeting but
some day, forever on the beaches of eternity, our
worship will be wild and free as it was
always meant to be.
“It’s who you
are and the way you live that count before God.
Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth.
That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for:
those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship.
God is sheer being itself—Spirit.
Those who worship him must do it out of their very being,
their spirits,
their true selves,
in adoration.”
Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth.
That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for:
those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship.
God is sheer being itself—Spirit.
Those who worship him must do it out of their very being,
their spirits,
their true selves,
in adoration.”
John 4:23-24 Msg
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