Jeff and Kallie

Since I was very small I remember wondering what it meant to "worship God". I remember my mom and dad telling me that we went to church to worship, but I didn't understand that. For some reason in my mind worshipping had something to do with kneeling and praying and meditating quietly. We didn't do that at church...we prayed and we sang and we learned a lot, but no meditating, no relaxing.

Over the years I've learned more and more about worshipping God and how to do that, and in all honesty my little mind wasn't too far off. Prayer and meditation are definitely ways to worship Heavenly Father. But lately it's all come together. And so I thought I would share my thoughts.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is a working gospel...we don't worship just by thinking about Him and praying to him, though that's certainly part of it. But where would we be if that was the end of it? If all we had to do was to meditate on being kind to others and studying the scriptures and doing other things like staying chaste and going to church and paying tithing. We have to do more than want to be good, He wants us to be good and then learn how we can be better and DO it.

At church there are so many things we do to worship Him - we pray, we sing hymns, and we serve one another by doing all we can in our callings. But perhaps less obviously, we LEARN. We are there to learn his gospel and to edify one another with our insights and comments. And we worship him most completely when we are prepared to learn, when our hearts are prayerful and open and when we study our lessons instead of just letting the teacher's words make us feel warm and fuzzy for an hour.

We know that the temple is a place for worship - think about what we do there. We don't go to the temple just to be close to God and to edify ourselves. We don't go to rest, we go to work. We go there to serve others and to give them opportunities for learning and growth that they might not otherwise have.

There are so many other ways that we worship by working - studying the scriptures, family home evening, home and visiting teaching, serving diligently in our callings, cleaning the church, helping one another.....ETC......!

In thinking about this I have realized that the gospel is very active, and the more active I can make it in my life, the happier I will be. Which is ironic, but so fundamental that I think we forget it a lot - at least I do. By serving others we find peace and joy and happiness. "He who loseth himself for my sake shall find himself". I mean OF COURSE the gospel is this way, it takes only a glimpse into the life of the Savior, our Leader and our King to know that. Which I suppose makes this a simple lesson that I've learned and perhaps a bit juvenile, but it has changed the way I feel about a lot of things. I really want to improve the way I worship God and this understanding has helped me figure out just what I need to do in order to do that effectively. Not wish to worship or hope to worship or ponder about worshipping, but to roll up my sleeves and get to work studying, praying, serving and loving.