Your Gift Is Your Presence

One day during my eighth grade year, my fellow students and I sat in the floor of the chorus room. It was chapel time, and we were singing. Well, that’s not quite right. Some of us were singing. Most of us were just sitting there. The song was “Shall We Gather at the River.” (Good ol’ #471.) I am pretty sure that I was one of the ones singing because I know I enjoy singing, though I may have been having a rough time since it was before I learned Alto was my best friend, but I digress. The general lack of participation frustrated the song leader. The lecture that resulted will go down in the history books as one of the most misconstrued lectures I’ve ever heard.

What was said was, “If you can’t enjoy singing this song, you won’t enjoy heaven.”

What some of us heard was, “If you aren’t singing this song, you won’t go to heaven.”

Quite a difference! I don’t have to tell you how upset this made a number of students. It was all anybody could talk about all the way back to class. We couldn’t even get any class work done, because so many were bothered by what was said – or what they thought was said. Our teacher literally had to stop teaching and explain to us what the song leader had really said and what he meant by it.

Some of the students, though, still didn’t understand – I got the impression they did, but they pretended they didn’t – and remained upset. There’s a lesson there, in and of itself, just in our tendency sometimes to hear what we want to hear and remain indignant even after being corrected. However, that’s not where I’m going. (But thanks for trying!)

When it comes to worship service, sometimes I have to wonder about our participation. We are commanded to worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). However, for most of us, there have been times when our minds have drifted to what’s for lunch, or what we have to do the next day, or why those people over there aren’t paying attention. (Imagine!) We can even become so distracted that it becomes more than just not paying attention; we can become so distracted that we fail to participate in worship, just like the students did that day in chapel. We doze off during the prayer…We don’t sing…We don’t listen to the sermon.

Our attendance for Bible Study and Worship is what we offer God. His gift is our presence. It is one thing to be physically present, but it requires far more determination and focusing to be mentally present. Let’s keep our minds on things above (Colossians 3:2)!