"We have been consumers of worship, when all the while we were supposed to be consumed by worship."

So often am I reminded - convicted - of how I am such a consumer of worship. I am convicted of how easily captured up I am by the lie that we go to worship to get, not to give. For so long I have been obsessed with the emotions and feelings and experience of worship; and while all these are relevant to worship, I have made them the focal point of my worshipping. I have told myself, "If you didn't feel God, then you didn't worship." How wrong I have been. It's not about getting a pleasant or even rewarding experience; it isn't about joy or happiness to be discovered in worship. David's worship is filled with tears and distant cries, when he screams out to God, "Where are you? I can't feel you!" How come we are possessed to think that if we don't FEEL God, then God is not present, then we are not truly worshipping. Sometimes God will not allow us the feelings - in a way, we ought to FEAR the feelings, because they can drag us into worshipping for the feelings, not in adoration of the King.