As You Run, Walk, or Whatever You Do: Worship

If I run, it is often at night.

Desiring to spend time with my family, I committed several weeks ago to run with Karen in the Choose Life 5K here in Fort Worth. The race is this Saturday, and I haven't run very much since making my "commitment." So, to remedy the problem, I went running last night around 8:30.

Somewhere in the middle of my 2.25 mi run--I'm not sure where because I was suffering oxygen deprivation--Shai Linne's song "The Glory of God" began to play over my headphones. The chorus and first verse revitalized me, and for a few minutes I was caught up in the grandeur of our great God as I ran beneath his sky!

Chorus:
Not to us, not to us
But to Your name be the glory!
(repeats)

Verse 1:
Let us begin: How should we start?
Brightness shining out of the dark
It shines in our hearts, providing a spark
His might incites the light to impart

Takes us back to Genesis 1
Angels clapped, and hymns- they were sung
Face the facts- He's second to none
In the beginning positioned the sun

Up in the sky, hovering high
The light's too bright, cover your eyes
Type of sights that none can devise
This Righteous Knight is lovely and wise

It's seen in the stars
Seen in the galaxies, seen in quasars
Neptune, Uranus and Pluto and Jupiter
Mercury, Saturn and Venus and Mars

Back to the earth, it shows in the trees
Each of the leaves blows in the breeze
Locusts and bees, ocean and seas
All the result of Jehovah's decrees

Observe the way His Word creates
Preserves and shapes, determines fates
Reverberates at urgent rates
The earth- it shakes with fervent quakes!

Imagine it
I can't explain the half of it
Our brains can't even fathom it
And language is inadequate

To characterize the Lord on the throne
With spiritual eyes, His story is known
From Him and through Him and to Him is everything
Surely to God be the glory alone!

(Shai Linne, "Glory of God," from The Attributes of God Album [2011])

I'm grateful for Shai Linne's artistic and driving call to worship the all-glorious God of the universe. As we run, walk, or whatever we do, let us worship this great God, for "from Him and through Him and to Him is everything / Surely to God be the glory alone!"

Embracing Crucifixion

Received a much-needed reminder this evening of God's manner of saving: God kills to make alive. True life is found through the death of Christ and this life is received through union with him in his death. Such is the pattern of the Christian life: it is a daily dying.

And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23 ESV).

Milton Vincent captures this truth beautifully:

I must set my face like a flint toward the cross and embrace [crucifixion with Christ] in everything I do. I should expect every day to encounter circumstantial evidence of God's commitment to my dying; and I must seize upon every God-given opportunity to be conformed more fully to Christ's death, no matter the pain involved.

When my flesh yearns for some prohibited thing, I must die. When called to do something I don't want to do, I must die. When I wish to be selfish and serve no one, I must die. When shattered by hardships that I despise, I must die. When wanting to cling to wrongs done against me, I must die. When enticed by allurements of the world, I must die. When wishing to keep besetting sins secret, I must die. When wants that are borderline needs are left unmet, I must die. When dreams that are good seem shoved aside, I must die.--Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians, 40–41.