“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”- Acts 16:25
“Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God.”- Mark Batterson
In Chapter 4 of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, author Mark Batterson shares that when he gets in an emotional or spiritual slump, it’s because he’s zoomed in on, or fixated on, a problem. Nine times out of ten, he adds, the solution is to zoom out in order to gain some perspective.
Pastor Batterson observes that Paul and Silas chose to worship God despite their external circumstances. Yes, that is a most difficult choice. But it is also the most important choice. The author defines worship as “zooming out and refocusing on the big picture”- that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, unconditionally loves us, and offers us eternal life without our earthly mourning, sorrow, or pain. When we zoom out and refocus we are enabled to find something good to praise God about, even when everything seems to be going wrong. Pastor Batterson refers to this as “one of the purest forms of worship.”
Today’s question: At this stage of your healing, transformational journey, are you more prone to zooming in or zooming out? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Complainer or worshipper?”
