Curtis Shelburne

The Real Spirit of Christmas and the New Year

For many years now, almost every year during Christmas, I’ve enjoyed making Charles Dickens’ venerable A Christmas Carol part of my Yuletide celebration.

When I was a child, our family always watched a television version of that great tale sometime during the holidays. My sister, an unabashed lover of all things Christmas, made sure that each year our old TV was tuned to the appropriate channel at the appropriate time. As an adult, I’ve enjoyed watching many of those varied adaptations. I have my favorites, and they are the ones most true to the original.

At some point, I decided to add to my own holiday traditions an actual reading of the delightful book. Dickens’ word pictures are, no surprise, better than even the best images Hollywood could ever produce. During recent years, I’ve also very much enjoyed listening to some well-done audio book performances of the story. Again, I want the “real deal,” unabridged and un-messed-with. And, as I write at this moment, I’m taking a break from listening to my favorite of those.

And now, I’m afraid that I need to make a confession. I’m chagrined to admit that this year, as the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future have haunted their way through my head, I’m seeing not just word pictures but some troubling similarities between myself and old Ebenezer Scrooge before his reclamation. I won’t go into too much detail, but suffice it to say that, as Scrooge and “grouch” are words that, sadly, go well together, I’m afraid that, far too often lately, my name has fit with both of those words far too comfortably. This needs to change. And it needs to change from the inside out.

Charles Dickens didn’t write his wonder-filled tale as Christian theology. Had he done so, it would have failed miserably.

The Apostle Paul is writing about the work of one Spirit in our lives when he urges that we be “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). The change we need is far too important, too integral, too vast, and too deeply real to be made simply by our resolving on our own to gut it out and “do better.” The effort we need to make is to put our trust in the only One who can change us from within.

As we stand on the cusp of a new year, I affirm the truth of G. K. Chesterton’s words: “The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.” As much as I love Dickens’ great story, his delightful depiction of those amazing “spirits” and Scrooge’s transformation, what we humans truly need for real change is something that only one Spirit can pull off.

Let’s invite God’s Spirit in for the new year, for each new day, and for every new moment of life God gives.

What Does Christmas Really Mean?

“Christmas is saying ‘yes’ to something beyond all emotions and feelings,” writes Henri Nouwen. “Christmas is saying ‘yes’ to a hope based on God’s initiative, which has nothing to do with what I think or feel. Christmas is believing that the salvation of the world is God’s work and not mine.”

Christmas is choosing for a change to take a look through the right end of the telescope and thrilling to the sight of God’s work written large rather than cringing before a universe shrunken, shriveled, and constricted, bounded on all sides by the nearsighted view of mortals almost as blind and dull as me.

Christmas means that the real question is not, “What must I do to be saved?” Not such a bad question for a jailer back in Philippi scared stiff about losing his head because of almost losing his prisoners (Acts 16). But the far better question for me is, “What has God already done to save me?” Christmas means finding that answer all wrapped up in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

Christmas means bringing gifts, my life itself and all that I am and have, to the Baby King not to enrich or impress him or add to the net worth of the One who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and who gives me the gift of my every breath, but simply because I love him and want to joyfully place before him the best that I have.

Christmas means finding a fleeting moment of sanity when I’m less full of myself and more filled with Heaven as I focus not on me but on the God of all life and joy.

Christmas means that though my Father wants the whole world to hear about the birth of his Son, right now his sweet will for me is to sit down with one or two or a few giggling and very specific pint-size children or grandchildren and tell the story about how once upon exactly the right time in Bethlehem angels sang and a star twinkled, and then I hum them to sleep with “Silent Night.”

If I’ve got Christmas right and know the real story, then Christmas also means I’m free to laugh with the little ones and tell them old new stories about how Scrooges get over taking themselves too seriously and what happens on “The Night Before Christmas.”

Christmas, for me, is realizing that the wonderful writer G. K. Chesterton discovered something as important as the law of gravity when he wrote, “Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.” It was through pride, he wrote, that Satan fell, and “the very skies were cracked across like a mirror, because there was a sneer in Heaven.” Christmas means that sugar plums always win over sneers, that the deadly self-serious always crash and burn, and that angels aren’t the only ones lifted into flight by joy.

Christmas means that though you may get a tiresome tax form in January, all you have to do is look up on a Yuletide night to see that Bethlehem always beats Caesar and that the twinkling tinsel of Heaven’s stars all point forever to the One brightest, the One eternal.

A Birth Announcement to Bethlehem Shepherds

This Christmas I find myself wondering yet again about those Bethlehem shepherds.

It’s possible, of course, that the Almighty chose these particular sheepherders as recipients of the angelic birth announcement of his Son because they were a sheep-shearing cut above the other sheep guys in the region.

Maybe they were better-dressed than most, draped in new camo robes ordered from Zimfela’s Catalog complete with hook-and-loop-secured mesh pockets for their ZX-7 night vision sheep-finding goggles.

Perhaps they were unusually prosperous shepherds, the sort who could afford a clean-robe-a-day laundry service; hence, if you were downwind and one was headed your way, your first clue would be visual or auditory, never olfactory.

Maybe, before entering any respectable domicile following their shepherd shift, they were always careful to switch from their field sandals to high-dollar Habakkukstock footwear lest they track in… something.

It’s even possible, I suppose, that the Lord God chose these particular fellows because they were unusually educated and articulate. Perhaps a couple or three of them were actually Aramaic majors who’d had a hard time finding lucrative employment after college but at class reunions, even though they were less well-sandaled than their Business Major classmates, could take solace in the fact that they understood more about the meaning of life.

Or maybe the Creator chose them because they were, against all stereotypes, remarkably religious sheepherders. Sure, their work made it hard for them to attend worship services in town, but they never failed to hold regular devotionals during each of their shepherd shifts. Granted, it had been a bit more complicated since zealous young Zebulun, on vacation a couple of months ago, had wandered into a trendy mega-synagogue in Jerusalem. Now they were holding two devotionals an evening, one traditional and the other contemporary.

I suppose all of that is possible. But if you’re selling it (which is unlikely), I’m probably not buying.

What I really think is that our heavenly Father brazenly, even scandalously, chose these guys to be first at the scene of his Son’s birth precisely because they were… wait for it… ordinary. Oh, I have no beef with these shepherds. Far from criticizing our Father’s choice, I find it laugh-out-loud delightful.

The heavens were torn open. The angel announced. The heavenly host sang. To an audience of guys who smelled conspicuously like the south ends of north-facing sheep, to gents whose manners and language were far from genteel, who were quite capable of describing recalcitrant sheep in colorful terms, and who’d heretofore been most likely to find angels only at the bottom of a wineskin.

For that Bethlehem birth announcement, God chose shepherds! Ordinary folks. Like us. Can you imagine anything more extraordinary?

What Does a Time Machine Look Like?

What does a time machine look like? Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better.

Whatever blurry images are filed in my mind under the category for “time machine” seem to be mostly of the science fiction sort, an amalgamation of parts and pieces, bits and bytes, digital readouts and antique clockfaces.

Gears of all sizes. Bright (probably Bakelite) knobs and shiny brass levers. Hoses and wires and a classic collection of spinning, buzzing, whirring, and otherwise eye- and ear-catching thingamajigs all somehow glued and screwed and welded together and, I suppose, doing something. Mostly, looking cool.

The machine I see inside my head also seems to emit, spew, or lazily leak from various joints, junctures, and pressure fittings, occasional puffs of steam, smoke, or mysterious gas. Why? I have no idea. Again, coolness.

Oh, and since most vintage time-travel books and movies agree that any worthwhile chrono-busting machine needs a comfortable or not, leather or not, seat for the inventor or scientist or… victim, my mental machine has one, too.

What I’ve not yet mentioned is that for well over sixty years, for at least a month each year, I’ve lived with a time machine carefully set up in a place of honor in my family’s home. In fact, I’m looking at the most recent one right now.

But the time machine presently sitting in my living room bears little resemblance to the odd gizmo I’ve just (out of my head in so many ways) tried to describe. It has no seat or gears, no levers or knobs or hoses. I don’t see anything on it spinning or smoking. But it does boast many feet of wiring and is covered in lights and sparkling glittery objects. And I tell you the truth, this time machine works.

One of its smallest adornments is a fragile glass ball, blue and fading. I touch that little bauble, and I’m transported back to my childhood home. Seven of the lights on this “machine” are equipped with glass columns holding cheerfully bubbling liquid. One look, and, yes, I’m a kid again.

If I want to choose other years, times to which I desire to travel, I just touch a velvet reindeer, feel a glass icicle, laugh at a string of lit-up plastic candy characters. And did I mention that this time machine boasts, on loan from the heavenly host, an angel on top overseeing all that’s happening below? What a machine!

And now I’ll tell you plainly what you’ve already surmised. My real-life time machine is called a Christmas tree, and it can convey me across the years and span decades in the twinkling of an eye or in the millisecond sparkle of a treasured old ornament.

Oh, the years fly by! Were I a lot smaller, I suppose I could go on circular trips aboard the electric train at the bottom of the tree. But for a much better ride and more joyful journey, all I need to do to get my time-ticket punched is to glance at a vintage ornament or ponder a family parable told by a cherished cherub lovingly placed on the branches of our time machine tree.

I know. Not all memories or times are the kind we savor. Some ache and sting, and we’d choose to go anywhere but back. But the One whose name this season bears has promised to travel with us and love us through all of life’s times. In my experience, he always has. I believe he always will. And I believe him because of a long-ago tree.

From the Turkey to the Manger

As I’m writing on the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving, most of us still have a bit of turkey left. No wonder a giblet or two of the news earlier today focused on a warning. Great Thanksgiving memories are worth holding on to, but the USDA cautions that leftover meals shouldn’t be kept too long.

At our house today, we still have a bit of turkey left, but we’re well past the “My, what a wonderful bird!” stage and have moved into the “Let’s slap a hunk or two of turkey between bread” stage. We’ll soon belly up to Stage III: “Okay, let’s grind up what’s left and make turkey salad sandwiches.” Not for me, thanks. After the poor bird hits the fan, I tend to lose interest.

And now, though Madison Avenue started weeks ago (completely unconcerned about Santa ending up skewered by a witch on a broom before Halloween), it really is time for us to start retrieving our Christmas decorations from under-the-stairwell storage. It’s time to prepare to string some garland and plug in some lights. By the time you read this, we’ll have pulled our plastic made-in-China tree out of its dusty bag, pieced it together, fluffed its fake branches, and it will be decorated, lit, and beautiful again.

I’m still glad I grew up when getting the tree meant going to a tree lot, almost freezing but warming up over a wood fire lit in a 55-gallon drum, crunching snow underfoot as we walked down the rows of trees to pick just the right one, and then tying it atop the family car to get it home. It smelled wonderful. It smelled like Christmas, and I love that smell.

For the first few years we lived here (where we’ve lived for almost forty), I tempted fate by hanging over the eaves of our two-story tall house to put up the Christmas lights. That gave me plenty of time to ponder the word for a swan dive off of our roof: fatal. So, nobody was happier than I was when I decided to build and light up some fiberboard shepherds who, along with their sheep, hang out just about halfway up the front of the house and who, I am relieved, pleased, and need to think, would look odd surrounded by additional Christmas lights.

Storyteller Garrison Keillor says that the folks in his fanciful Lake Wobegon town charged with setting up the city’s Christmas decorations at about this time each year still curse the volunteer handyman who built the decorations years ago out of 3/4-inch plywood. Not quite that heavy, my shepherds and their flock still seem to put on some weight each year. Hoisting those gents requires some care, but it’s still more fun than hanging string after string of lights at high altitude.

So, I guess I’m about ready for the transition from “We Gather Together” and “Over the River and Through the Woods” to “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!”

The “early church” of the first century was way too early to know anything about Thanksgiving American-style, but they could teach us a lot about giving thanks. At the heart of their gratitude was an Advent sort of truth that bridges the gaps between all seasons: “For God so loved the world that he sent his Son.” That means that God loves you. And he loves me.

I really am thankful for last week’s turkey—stages one, two, or even three. Do keep the USDA’s warning in mind. But, even more important, remember that gratitude never goes bad.

“Give Thanks in All Circumstances”

“O most gracious God,” wrote the eloquent sufferer, “on this sickbed I feel under your correction, and I taste of humiliation, but let me taste of consolation, too.”

John Donne, poet and priest, so wrote in one of his “devotions” in 1623 (which were published in January 1624 as Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions). I may be mistaken about the date, but I believe that it was in 2000 when, in an article in Christianity Today, Philip Yancey shared a brief modernized excerpt from Donne’s “Devotions” that caught my eye. (And, in 2023, Yancey’s larger and continued “update” was published, Undone: A Modern Rendering of John Donne’s Devotions.)

As Yancey explains, Donne had fallen seriously ill. Not unreasonably, he assumed he had contracted the bubonic plague, the scourge filling graves with masses of people during those dark days. The “Black Death” had made its presence unmistakable. London’s church bells tolled “dolefully,” and Donne wrote his famous poem, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” reminding his readers that the loss of anyone is a loss to us all. So, don’t ask “for whom the bell tolls,” he penned, “it tolls for thee.”

In his “Devotions” (as Yancey shares them), Donne contemplates the many blessings God has given.

“Nature reaches out her hand and offers corn, and wine, and oil, and milk; but it was you [God] who filled the hand of nature with such bounty.”

Donne thanks God for the blessings that come from fruitful labor, and he acknowledges that, no matter how hard and well the laborer has worked, it is God who guides and “gives the increase.”

He thanks the Lord for friends who “reach out their hands to support us,” even as he acknowledges, “but your hand supports the hand we lean on.”

I’m continually amazed at how suffering is used by some as Exhibit A against God, at the very same time as others, passing “through the fire,” eventually come out with faith strengthened and “tempered.”

On his sickbed, Donne writes, “Once this scourge has persuaded us that we are nothing of ourselves, may it also persuade us that you are all things unto us.”

In striking contrast to the verbal drizzle of those who promise health and wealth to the faithful, or to those whose “faith” is in consumer religion as long as it “meets their needs,” Donne reminds us that when God’s own Son on the cross “cried out, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ you reached out your hand [Lord,] not to heal his sad soul, but to receive his holy soul.” And Jesus surrendered his soul to his Father in trust.

Donne would recover. His sickness was not the plague. But before he knew the certainty of the outcome, he was certain of his hope: “Whether you will bid my soul to stay in this body for some time, or meet you this day in paradise, I ask not.”

But he wrote his confidence: “I can have no greater proof of your mercy than to die in you and by that death be united in him who died for me.”

Following the Apostle Paul’s admonition to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) is not even a little easy. But if our lives show that our faith is in God—not in luck or our own power or circumstances—we will learn that easy lives and blessed lives are not the same thing. And not just our own faith will be strengthened and affirmed, and not just our own lives will be blessed by that trust.

A Recipe for a Perfect Thanksgiving?

“Stay with us,” came the morning TV tease, “and we’ll hear from a restaurant critic who’ll help us plan for a stress-free holiday. Coming up is his guide to the perfect Thanksgiving dinner.”

Well, that put a bad taste in my mouth, and I tuned out before I heard what to stuff in my stuffing. Any recipe that claims to marry the flavors of “stress free” and “perfect” is 100 per cent guaranteed to cook up gut-wrenching failure and frustration. On any holiday. On any day. In any life.

I used to believe over-achievers who work from the deeply held (and unexamined) premise that if they can just push the rest of us hard enough to live up to their standards, we, too, can be almost perfect.

I used to think “motivational” sayings like “Good is the enemy of Excellent!” were wise. (If you’ve just been to a “success” seminar, bought the idea, the book, and the poster, forgive me.) I know they mean to caution against complacency and urge toward improvement.

But real encouragement that builds up and leads to genuine improvement is not the same as arrogant brow-beating that sends the message: you’re inadequate, and you’ll never meet my standards. One leads to hope, and the other leads to despair—and makes most folks want to recommend another recipe for stuffing: “You can take your standards and…”

Have we noticed? The only truly perfect One opts to save the world through grace, not a step-by-step improvement plan. Grace not only frees and forgives, it empowers.

But didn’t Jesus say, “Be perfect”? Just a very little study will show that the word means “complete” or “full-grown,” as in “moving toward maturity.” It’s hopeful movement in the right direction. It’s not the arrogant soul-sucking, joy-killing, despair-producing idolatrous lie that perfection will be ours if we just get really serious about “trying harder.” Or, worse, that if we push hard enough, we can force the folks around us to be as perfect as we are.

We don’t get “perfect.” Not here. “Self-righteousness” and “do-it-yourself holiness” are lies. Trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps has one benefit: It shows us how flimsy our bootstraps are and how weak is our grip. We’re wiser, kinder, a lot easier to be around, and a whole lot more useful to God, once our bootstraps have broken. It’s easier to look up to God when we’ve fallen red-faced on our tails, no longer convinced that if you give us long enough and we try hard enough, we’ll get life just right, and we’ll get the rest of you to shape up, too.

That’s a sad and lonely way to live. What arrogant assumptions about ourselves make us think we’re suited to live with perfection even if we could get it or force it? Perfectionism doesn’t produce better Thanksgivings or better turkeys—or better spouses, or children, or homes, or churches, or businesses. Settle only for “perfect,” and, not only will we not get it, we’ll chase away “good.” And our joy, and the joy of those around us, will soon be circling the drain.

So, let’s do ourselves and our families a big favor and forget about a stress-free perfect Thanksgiving. Or a stress-free perfect life. Let’s opt for “grace-full” instead. Then we’ll not only get some great cranberry sauce with our turkey, we’ll get a big helping of joy in our lives as we let God do the job of being God. And, ironically, we’ll get a lot closer to honoring our Creator and tasting what God calls “perfect.”

A Good Word: “The Last Will Be First”

Infracaninophile.

The word above, friends, is indeed an actual word. By the time you finish reading the other words I’m hoping to line up here, my additional hope is that you might have some idea as to what it means and how to use it. But I confess that my deeper hope and confident belief is that you will also have enough good sense not to use it. I can only imagine how impressed folks down at the coffee shop, the waiting room, or the teachers’ lounge would be should someone choose to nonchalantly drop such a word into casual conversation. I say “impressed,” but I do not say “favorably” impressed.

So, you might ask, where did you get that word? What impressed you about it?

The simple answer is that I got it via the free “Word of the Day” emails sent to subscribers by the folks at Word Genius (wordgenius.com). What impressed me about the word is that it looks and sounds even stranger than their usual daily offerings (which are often strange and unusual), and I found this one oddly appealing. It’s interestingly long, and particularly if you were blessed with a good background in phonics, you’ll likely find that it has an interesting taste in your mouth as you roll it around on your tongue and experiment with its pronunciation.

The folks at the website I’ve mentioned are kind enough to provide with each day’s word a wealth of information regarding definitions, pronunciations, and backgrounds. You can probably look the word over and come up with some guesses of your own, but they explain that “infra-” has to do with being “underneath.” “Canin” refers to the Latin “caninus” for “dog.” And “-phile” is a suffix from Greek, “meaning ‘dear’ or ‘beloved.’” So, they define an “infracaninophile” as “a person who loves or admires underdogs.” (The downtrodden fans of perennially losing teams come to mind.)

Again, according to the folks at Word Genius, the word was coined “in the first half of the 20th century” by Christopher Morley in his preface to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Morley created the word, they say, and used it to describe Holmes as always being “the infracaninophile—the helper of the underdog.” They write that “underdog” was “a recent American invention” and that Morley “saw the humor of rephrasing a modern slang word in ancient-sounding Latin.”

Well, it really is a cool-sounding word with a rather interesting pedigree. As words go, maybe there’s something oddly fitting about a word referring to “lovers of underdogs” coming out on top at least on one day in its own featured article.

I don’t plan to work “infracaninophile” into any sermons, and I’d be surprised if any theologian or Bible commentator has ever decided to put the word to use. But take a look at the Christ we see in the Gospels healing the hurting, cherishing the poor, delighting in children, touching the untouchable, saving the lost. And don’t fail to ponder his words when he says that in God’s kingdom “the last will be first” (Matthew 20:16).

Infracaninophile? Oh, yes! The Greatest of All loves “the least of these” with the greatest of all loves.

Word Salad and a Win-win

Word salad, here we come.

Miniskirt. Degradable. Scuzzy. Prefaded. Lite. Porn. Salsa. Nucleosome. Cockamamie. Turista. Gigawatt. Interrobang. Bioweapon.

And some two-word entries. Zip code. Fender bender. Tumble dry. Satellite dish. Launch window. Road rash. Log on.

And let’s not forget some hyphenated contenders. Artsy-fartsy. Three-pointer. Get-go. T-ball. One-liner. Mixed-media. Coffee-table. Anti-seizure.

My question: What do all of these words or combination-words have in common? I’m sure you spotted the connection immediately, but I’ll tell you anyway. Each of them was first found in print in the year 1962.

Honestly, I don’t blame you for not knowing that interesting fact. (At least, it’s interesting to me.) I could have listed many more words, but I chose the ones above as being generally more common and less technical than a good many more options. The list I was perusing came up on the Merriam-Webster online site under its very entertaining section, “Time Traveler.” Nerds like me could spend hours there and enjoy every moment immensely. “Nerd” first hit print in 1951. I just thought you’d want to know.

I was hooked and reeled in by “Time Traveler” as I looked up the definition of a hyphenated word familiar to us all: “win-win.” Yes, it was found in print for the first time in 1962, and it describes a situation, deal, or outcome “advantageous or satisfactory to all parties involved.”

So, as I was looking for the dictionary definition, I managed to get an interesting history lesson regarding 1962. Win-win.

When the Apostle Paul penned his Letter to the Philippians, he was imprisoned and “in chains,” but he wanted his dear friends at Philippi to know that he was not only surviving, he was thriving, and that whatever happened, he had no fear of the outcome at all. He writes that he was rejoicing that Christ would be “exalted in his body” whether by his life or by his death. He went on to write, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (1:21).

The apostle makes it clear that he expects that God’s will was for him to continue living at that point, and to do so would mean “fruitful labor.” But he also expresses his deep belief that for him to “depart” and be with Christ would be “better by far.” So, he exults, “I am torn between the two.” The apostle, writing in Greek some 1900 years before “win-win” showed up in 1962, seems to be embracing his situation as exactly that type of scenario.

A friend told me this week of a married couple facing a health situation that could very well spell the end of the earthly life of the husband. In all of their lives together, they had placed their trust and hope in Christ Jesus, and as they were moving into this trying time, they made the choice to adopt Paul’s attitude. For them, they affirmed, it would ultimately be a “win-win.”

Yes, there are words for that. Faith. Hope. Confidence. Love.

Win-win indeed.

“Triple Your Answers to Prayer”

A “teaser” on the front of the little magazine touted an article inside: “How to Triple Your Answers to Prayer.” I found myself wondering what might be prescribed.

Incantations? A cauldron filled with a steaming potion featuring eye of newt, tongue of frog? Could I get more answers to prayer (answers that I like) if my technique was better or my recipe more precise? Is the bottom line the number of really “good” answers I get and catalog? I think I’d like the guy who said that any Christian who says to another believer undergoing pain, “If you had enough faith and prayed as you should, you wouldn’t hurt,” needs very badly to be hit over the head with a baseball bat to help him test his own theory.

I believe St. James when he writes that God’s people sometimes “don’t have” because they “don’t ask” or “ask wrongly.” A right attitude is important.

But the bottom line on prayer is nothing that can be quantified, measured, or cataloged. Thank God for heartwarming answers. But, most of all, thank God for the growing and soul-warming relationship that time in prayer builds between you and the Father who gave you life and wants to spend time with you, his child.

To a skeptic watching you bend the knee, you’re just talking to yourself. Prayer is worthless, he thinks, because he sees it producing no practical results. But to you, child of God, and to your Father, it is precious and would be no more precious if you could accurately catalog 143 direct “results.”

The same thing is true for the same reasons regarding our worship. In a society that values nothing unless it produces measurable results—the bigger, the better—why worship?

To get recharged spiritually.

To have fellowship with God’s people and encourage them.

To be able to leave to serve.

To “fill up” so we can do all sorts of obviously beneficial stuff and carry on all sorts of programs, the kind that can be measured and look good in church flyers and bulletins.

Well, I’m all for those “results” and more. But God’s people worship for one reason that overshadows any other and needs no defense: we worship to glorify the God who is absolutely worthy and deserving of all praise.

An old kind of pragmatic legalism says, “You can only be saved if you do enough to be worth saving.” A modern kind just as seductively says, “Your prayers and your worship are only worthwhile if they produce visible and measurable results.”

Both ideas are as wrong as they are, in the final analysis, cruel. Our prayers and worship are precious to God not because they’re so good at producing impressive results; they’re precious to God because, trusting in him, we’re his precious children, completely loved and accepted by our Father already.

In that knowledge, we worship and pray. And living in that knowledge, we find that God has indeed provided “in advance” plenty of good works for us to do, some of which can probably be listed in a church bulletin, but lots of which don’t look particularly “religious” at all. But the marvelous fact remains: God loves and accepts us before we’re able to do a single one.

Our Father is amazingly impractical that way.