last day

i mentioned in my welcome for this blog that i have been serving as a musician for parkview church in iowa city, iowa for about seven years, but this morning was my very last time playing for weekend services. in a little less than two weeks i'll be making the move from iowa city to bristol, tennessee to start my new job. i've played everything from trombone to mandolin at parkview, and this past year i was fortunate enough to come on staff to lead worship and coordinate some events and projects. i am forever grateful to have had this opportunity to work with so many amazing people in an environment saturated with worship for our King.

the nature of worship is an interesting thing. in our culture we have come to adopt music as a kind of 'flagship' for worshiping God; that singing and playing instruments take center stage (no pun intended) when it comes to this idea of praise. and while i love music to no end and will hopefully be able to make it part of my daily worship to God for the rest of my life, it can't be the only thing we offer to Him.

romans 12:1 says, "therefore i urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service to worship."

what this prompts me to conclude is that while we remain here on earth, anything we offer God as an act of worship will be incomplete. whether it's our songs, our time, our money, whatever, when He commands our whole selves, all of who we are, we are incapable of giving it. but it certainly isn't what we don't offer that matters...let me say that a different way: what God cares about is what we do give Him.

a.w. tozer, in his book knowledge of the holy, writes a lot about God's "complete love." the love our Father has for us is eternally complete and holy...meaning that if we spent our entire lives living contrary to His will, He would never love us any less; and if we spent our entire lives constantly praising Him, He wouldn't love us anymore than He already does. isn't that incredible!? what that says to me is that my worship to God, in whatever form, exists only for Him, not for me. what an amazing God we serve.

all that being said, it's pretty obvious that i'm going to miss serving at parkview, but my worship to God will, by God's grace alone, remain the product of my whole life lived each day; that's all i have to give. thank God He loves our humble offerings.