made to worship

As I was watching the thousands of people who had traveled untold distances to attend the Democratic National Convention last week, I was struck with the truth of scripture: People were created to worship.

We long for it, we need it, we have an ocean-sized void in our soul that cries out for it.

In our attempt to fill that void, we easily find ourselves worshipping anything... anyone.

It's a truth that I've heard in countless sermons before, one that I've accepted and claim to understand. But it's one thing to believe a truth as fact, and quite another to feel the truth in your bones.

For a brief moment I was struck with the flesh-and-blood reality of scriptural truth. I felt it. I really got it.

As I watched the camera slowly pan from whole of the crowd to specific individuals in the crowd, I saw something. I saw faces full of hope and longing. People intently listening to someone they believed could offer them a better life. People fervently cheering with joy and excitement. People literally weeping with emotion.

I realized that I was watching people who needed a savior. People in need of The True Savior.

On one hand, I felt like I was seeing a tiny glimpse of what Heaven must be like: untold numbers of people gathered together in unity to worship and praise our Creator. I got excited as I thought how overwhelming and beautiful Heaven must be. How freeing and emotional it must feel to corporately worship the One we were created to worship. The wholeness and completeness of being who we were designed to be must be nothing short of awesome.

Then I felt really sad. Sad because all that love - all that worship that I was watching - was so misplaced. I was watching thousands of people fill their God-shaped void with a paltry substitute for the real thing.

Instead of worshipping the only One who can offer true hope, all those people were offering their praise and adoration to... a man. Just a man.

The thing is - I do it too. I fill my God-shaped void every day with things and people that always leave me feeling empty. I don't want to worship money or other things and ideas that don't last, but I do it... Without thinking.

It was definitely humbling and eye-opening.

Just a thought...