Missing Worship

Day 42.
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival. (Psalm 42:4 ESV)

The psalmist is away from Jerusalem and feeling the anxiety of his enemies around him. It is foreboding feeling, a draining feeling and reminds him of his days back in the temple, leading the procession of the congregation in worship. He longs to be back there!

This is what worship is, “a multitude keeping festival,” that fills us up with a sense of the Lord’s presence and the Lord’s steadfast love. Being away from worship should bring the kind of longing the psalmist expresses, “like a deer pants for the water in a dry and thirsty land, so my soul pants for you.”

For this to be your experience when you are away from worship, you must know the experience of God’s presence and steadfast love in worship.

How do you prepare your heart for worship?

Chronological Reading Plan plus Psalms: Ex 36-38, Ps 42