My friend Harry and I took a trip to the big city on Saturday. We drove down to Columbus, to the state fair grounds, and went to the annual Deer and Turkey Expo there. There were hundreds of vendors selling anything you can think of related to whitetail deer or turkey hunting. There were even vendors selling stuff that Daniel Boone never even dreamed of. I was looking at all this stuff, listening to all the different turkey and deer “calls” being demonstrated and just trying to deal with the whole “huge crowd of people” thing when I saw them… There, two rows over, hanging on specially built walls were dozens and dozens of mounted deer heads. They all had huge antlers, the kind that haunts the dreams of deer hunters. They were polished and mounted in all kinds of life like poses. As we walked among “the giants” I noticed that the crowd noise was less, a lot less, and the people were just staring at them in awe. It was kind of like being in a church. There I was, in a large crowd of people who were worshiping.

Now before you get all up in arms and start quoting scripture about worshiping only God and not getting caught up in idolatry. Relax, take a deep breath, and let’s look at what worship is. Worship is defined as “Reverent honor and homage paid to God, or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred” or having “adoring reverence or regard” for something or someone. How many things do we worship without realizing that is what we are doing? Spouses? Children? Our Work? Sports? Food? Deer hunting? I am guilty on all counts.

Is this an issue with God? Is He constantly monitoring me to see if I’m daydreaming about a 12 point buck walking past my tree stand? I don’t think so. I think that as long as I put Him first in my life, and make sure all that other stuff doesn’t take His rightful place in our lives. I think we will be in good standing with God. I’m sure He is not at all surprised when we look with “adoring reverence” at a beautiful sunset as long as we remember who made that sunset. After He made us, and He made us with a purpose. That purpose is to worship! We can no more keep from worshiping than we can keep from breathing. It’s what we were designed to do. The trick is to keep our focus on what we are doing. We need to make sure that we give God our first and best worship. You know what I mean. Worship with a capital ‘W’! If we keep that kind of focus and consistently put God first in our lives, then it’s okay to regard our spouses with awe and reverence, it’s okay to enjoy sports, even being a Giants fan is probably all right. When we put Our Father first in our lives, it seems to me that He blesses the rest of our time. Even time spent in worship of other things.

Until next time,

Randy