We once bought a house with a popcorn ceiling that my wife hated, and she wanted me to remodel. Using a scraper, I used great effort, a dust mask and great muscle to clear off a whole square foot of the ceiling. My arms were smoked, and I looked at what was left of this first phase of the project and was feeling discouraged. Imagining myself getting totally ripped helped me get another few feet of progress completed but still little was done when I called it a day. That evening at church I was sharing about the project with a friend who was a professional drywaller. He listened and nodded knowingly with my plight. Then he smiled and said, “Use a squirt bottle of water, wet it down and then scrape it.” When I got home, even though it was late I grabbed the spray bottle from our grill and went to work. Now the mud came flying off of the ceiling. Most of the ceiling was completely cleared before I went to bed that night. A little water made the work go smoothly.
Poverty Warrior, worship works much the same way with the hardened heart. I am not simply talking about music though that form of worship can be very powerful as well. What I am talking about is developing a heart and lifestyle of worship. It is said that David had a heart like God’s. David had a propensity to worship. If we are to succeed in breaking through the barrier without damaging the flower, we must lubricate the situation with a heart of worship. Do you even notice all that God has given you? Some days I am in absolute awe over all that God has given me. In our modern day world God has given us countless people to serve us, isn’t that reason enough to worship Him?
But you say to me, Rich, I don’t have anybody serving me. I say you need to open your eyes. Let me illustrate just how many people are serving you today. Imagine that you are using a pencil. The rubber tip on the pencil was harvested in a land far from you by someone serving you. Then there was a salesman who sold the harvest to a central location that put it on a boat and trucks to get it to the pencil factory. Each of those modes of transportation was navigated by people serving you. The people that made the boat or the truck were serving you. The gas stations and truck stop attendants that keep the vehicles moving were all serving you. That is just one part of a simple pencil. If you consider all of the items and places you go each day there are countless people serving you. Rejoice and worship the God of Glory for providing that for you. Then when someone serves you in front of you, thank them wholeheartedly. That is worship of the God of provision.
During one season of my Army career, I was working in the tactical operations center (TOC). We were in the field and our commander had wanted to see how nimble we were. He would yell out, “Jump Toc.” We would need to pack up everything and move to a new location and reset all without losing communication with the rest of our unit. I had lost count of how many times we had done this exercise that we did in snow, in the dark, with and without enemy interference. Needless to say, at the end of the day when he commended our last effort and promised that we would be in place for the next 24 hours I was relieved. During dinner, my shift was about over and that meant that I could get a few hours of rack time. I was really looking forward to this and said, “I am so glad that this shift is nearly over.” One of the captains began rejoicing and dancing around declaring that he could not believe he finally heard me curse. Confused, I looked at him and restated what I actually said. I determined long ago that I was going to live with righteousness and use clean language. This captain knew this and was watching me to see if I was for real. He thought he had finally caught me in an indiscretion. I learned that day that those with a hard heart are always watching, when they see you worship you will be softening the hard heart.
