Everything I know about worship I learned from a toddler and a ziploc bag of Cheerios. My wife and I had accepted an invitation to spend Thanksgiving with friends in Bermuda, so early on the morning of our flight, we yanked our eleven month old daughter from her crib, threw our bags in the taxi and headed for the airport. All had gone smoothly so far - ticketing, baggage check, the obligatory screenings and security clearance - but our baby’s sleep had been disrupted and her tolerance and endurance had started to wear thin. She grew more and more fussy and frustrated as we sat on the concourse waiting for the sun to rise and the plane to start boarding.
I reached into the diaper bag for every parent’s secret weapon - dry cereal. With the baby strapped in her stroller and me seated on the floor before her, the game started. I would take a single Cheerio from the baggie, hold it out to her between my fore finger and thumb, she would take it between her forefinger and thumb, examine it, smile at it, and then pop it in her mouth and kick her feet contentedly. We did this over and over - one Cheerio, from my fingers to hers, survey, smile, popped in mouth with kicking of feet. Endlessly, and robotically, and contentedly we repeated this chain of movements.
And then the game switched.
Without warning, she turned it on me. I took a Cheerio from the baggie between my thumb and forefinger, held it out to her, she took it in her thumb and forefinger, looked it over, smiled at it, and then popped it in MY MOUTH! And right there on the concourse floor, with a drooling, smiling baby, and flight attendants calling for passengers to begin boarding, I understood worship for the first time in my life.
WORSHIP is handling the marvelous person and works of our saving GOD as he holds them out to us, delighting in them, and then holding them back out to him. It is the cheerios game, with something bigger and better than cheerios. FAMILY WORSHIP is including our households to play the game with us. It doesn’t have to be perfect, some of us might even be fussy and cranky at the start of it, but often the SPIRIT OF GOD meets us in simple practices and unlikely circumstances to heap on us peace, and joy, and increasing faith.
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