Worship God Alone, Not Worldly Glory

I work as a caretaker for multiple individuals with severe disabilities. I am also a father of two wonderful kids. Both of these roles come with many obligations, but also the chance to build special and profound relationships. Today’s reading about what it means to worship God with my life reminded me of the difference between obligations and relationships. Obligation and relationship can sometimes seem like the same thing, but when we perform our obligations without putting enough effort into the relationships we often miss the point of why we do these things in the first place! 

Working with individuals with disabilities is a huge passion of mine and I get great joy from my work. Each of the individuals I work with has a specific diet, medical needs, behavioral support, and scheduling needs that require lots of time and attention. It takes a lot sometimes to do all that needs to be done in a day in order to keep the home and day services running. Where I have seen people struggle, and have even struggled myself, is when the obligations that we have to perform for the individuals becomes a checklist of tasks to complete rather than a way to facilitate building a positive relationship. For example, it is easy when I am helping someone get ready in the morning to start going through the motions of the morning routine and forget to really engage with the individual. But it is so much better when I have fun with them while getting ready instead! I might turn on music while we get ready or just talk and joke around with them and make them laugh. I will take more time helping them pick out their outfit for the day and compliment them on how good they look. Often these small changes can make a huge difference in how the day goes. Instead of focusing on the tasks I needed to complete, I focus on the person that I was doing those tasks for. 

The same is true with my kids. One of the things I do every night when my kids are going to bed is go into each of their rooms and pray with them. This has always been important to me, but there are definitely times when I do it more out of obligation than trying to build my relationship with them. After a difficult day, or difficult evening getting them to go to bed on time, there have been times when I have mailed it in a bit on the prayer. I will give a half hearted “Help them sleep well and have no bad dreams, amen.” I get through the prayer quickly just to say I did it. This misses the point of why I do it in the first place. The reason that I pray with them every night is because I want to model my faith and connect with my kids before they go to sleep. It is so much better if I take just a few more minutes to ask them how they are doing and talk to them about their days. Then I can pray for the things going on in their lives and connect with them on a deeper level. 

All of the practices and “methods” that we do in order to love and serve God are built on our relationship with Him. In our faith, there are definitely times when these practices can start to become obligations. We say things like, “It’s Sunday–I have to go to church.” There are times when I have gone through the motions of worship without really connecting with God. I have shown up to a service project or Bible study or worship just because I was expected to and not to try and connect with God. It is important to remember that the reason we do all of these things is to have a relationship with our faithful and loving God! How can you connect with God today in some way instead of just going through the motions?