Family Altar, part 2

A few more thoughts on family worship:

Earlier, I spoke about there being no sense of duty in our motivation for doing family worship. I think that statement needs a little clarification! On our better days, we do family worship out of our sense of joy in doing so and out of our great need to gather our family together to meet with God.

However, we often experience difficult days when our hearts do not yearn for God or we have stuffed ourselves full of worldly pleasures and our desire for God has been dulled. Or maybe we are exhausted from the needs and demands of the day. What then?

These are not times to withdraw from the Lord, but rather when we should simply go about family worship in the same manner as we normally do. We can always come honestly to God, and express our lack of affection (He knows anyway!) and our need for Him to rekindle our love.

Expect that there will days when family worship will not happen. We can be providentially hindered by all sorts of things that occur during the course of the week. I have read about Elisabeth Elliott's upbringing, when her father led in family worship twice a day! That is very commendable, but may not be (I want to say probably will not be) doable for most families. Do not read of examples like this and feel like you do not measure up (like I often do!)- rather take the principle and ask God how you can apply it to your own life. (More on that in my next post.)

As with so many other areas of our lives, sometimes we can only do the best we can (and our best is usually greatly lacking) and rest in Christ, knowing that God's mercies are new every morning and only His faithfulness is great (our faithfulness will never be great, and is always the result of God's grace in our lives). And that is a reason to worship.