ADORE
Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! Psalm 95:6
We so easily adore a new outfit, a cute purse, a nice haircut, a snappy tie or a cool car but what does this word mean? With little effort, we apply the world’s definition but let’s just dig a little deeper.
According to my go-to-dictionary, Google, it can be worship, venerate, glorify, praise and revere (plus two lesser definitions). Can we honestly adore these things mentioned above? Hardly! There is only One who deserves our adoration and I am still intrigued by the shepherds and wisemen who seemed to instinctively know that Jesus was no ordinary baby. Those scruffy, smelly shepherds with no names, came to worship and adore Him. The wisest men in the world traveled many months to find this young toddler and then fell to their knees in adoration as they offered Him expensive gifts.
In our world today, it is not easy to keep our focus on anything for very long. We flit from one thing to another and can’t remember what we were doing. Our spiritual life looks like this too! Year after year we say we are going to improve in various areas but don’t make it past the first month, week or even day before we give up in frustration. Maybe we are not being realistic if we can’t seem to stick with our plan.
Let’s approach this from a different angle. I am convinced that part of adoration is an attitude of gratitude. Is it possible to be thankful every day or even two or three times a day? I am not talking about being grateful for avoiding the speed trap or finding $20 in the parking lot. I am referring to appreciation for waking us to catch a beautiful sunrise: it’s the appreciation for having family around, for loving friends.
How did we get all that? The Creator of the universe sent His Son to earth for you and me and these are just a few of the benefits we get to enjoy. However, we must be very careful not to adore Him for what He does for us. We adore Him for who He is! Right?
Those shepherds and wisemen were on to something! I believe the best challenge for this year is to adore Him more.
Father God, thank You for the shaggy shepherds and richest wisemen who have become our examples of how to adore Your Son. All of us are in this mix somewhere, so help us to learn how to show more devotion this year and always. AMEN.