Anything Considered

"Now what does this imply about the feast of worship? Surprisingly, it implies that worship is an end in itself. We do not eat the feast of worship as a means to anything else. If what transforms outward ritual into authentic worship is the quickening of the heart's affections, then true worship cannot be performed as a means to some other experience. Feelings are not like that. Genuine feelings of the heart cannot be manufactured as stepping stones to something else.

For example: My brother-in-law called me long distance in 1974 to tell me my mother had just been killed. I recall his breaking voice as I took the phone from my wife: "Johnny, this is Bob, good buddy. I've got bad news... Your mother and dad were in a serious bus accident. Your mom didn't make it, and your dad is hurt bad."

One thing is for sure. When I hear news like that, I do not sit down and say, "Now to what end shall I feel grief?" As I pull my baby son off my leg and hand him to my wife and walk to the bedroom to be alone, I do not say, "What good end can I accomplish if I cry for the next half-hour?" The feeling of grief is an end in itself, as far as my conscious motivation is concerned.

It is there spontaneously. It is not performed as a means to anything else. It is not consciously willed. It is not decided upon. It comes from deep within, from a place beneath the conscious will. It will no doubt have many byproducts - most of them good. But that is utterly beside the point as I kneel by my bed and weep. The feeling is there, bursting out of my heart. And it is an end in itself.

Grief is not the only example. If you have been floating on a raft without water for three days after a shipwreck on the ocean, and there appears a speck of land on the horizon, you do not say, "Now to what end shall I feel desire for that land? What good end should now prompt me to decide to feel hope?" Even though the longing in your heart may give you the renewed strength to get to land, you do not perform the act of desire and hope and longing in order to get there.

The longing erupts from deep in your heart because of the tremendous value of water (and life!) on that land. It is not planned and performed (like the purchase of a plane ticket) as a means to getting what we desire. It rises spontaneously in the heart. It is not a decision made in order to... anything! As a genuine feeling of the heart it is an end in itself"

"When you stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon for the first time and watch the setting sun send the darkness down through the geological layers of time, you do not say, "Now to what end shall I feel awe and wonder before this beauty?

When a little child on Christmas morning opens his first gift and finds his "most favouritest" rocket that he has wanted for months, he does not think, "Now to what end shall I feel happy and thankful?" We call a person an ingrate when words of gratitute are dutifully forced instead of coming spontaneously from the heart."

"All genuine emotion is an end in itself. It is not consciously caused as a means to something else. This does not mean we cannot and should not seek to have certain feelings. We should and we can. We can put ourselves in situations where the feeling may more readily be kindled. We may indeed prize some of the results of these findings as well as the feelings themselves. But in the moment of authentic emotion, the calculation vanishes. We are transported (perhaps only for seconds) above the reasoning work of the mind and we experience feeling without reference to logical or practical implications.

This is what keeps worship from being "in vain." Worship is authentic when affections for God arise in the heart as an end in themselves. In worship God is the dreaded voice on the phone. God is the island on the horizon. God is the bear and the setting sun and the "most favouritest" rocket and the mother who gave it...

... If God's reality is displayed to us in his Word or his world, and we do not then feel in our heart any grief or longing or hope or fear or awe or joy or gratitude or confidence, then we may dutifully sing and pray and recite and gesture as much as we like, but it will not be real worship. We cannot honor God if our "heart is far from him".

Worship is a way of gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of his worth. This cannot be done by mere acts of duty. It can be done only when spontaneous affections arise in the heart."

JOHN PIPER, Desiring God, Pages 70-72