I really like garages that are well organized.  The kind you walk into and there is a specific shelf space for each tool, pegs to hang things on, and work tables that have nicks and dents but are nevertheless all cleaned up.

A number of years ago when I was a small boy, my dad brought home a large metal gray box with small clear plastic drawers. I can’t remember if there were 30 or 40 little drawers, but there were a bunch.  He asked for my help in getting the box organized by putting like objects together in each drawer.

Over the years I’ve learned it is pretty handy to go about life as if our minds were a box with separate drawers.  I believe that it is healthy to have a mental drawer for work, a mental drawer for activities to do with children, a drawer for working out, a drawer for responding to specific ongoing challenges, a family dynamics drawer, a relaxation drawer, and a mental fun drawer.

Said another way, learning to compartmentalize things like putting like objects into a plastic drawer in a metal box, is a way of living that brings about health, resilience, and greater effectiveness.

But as I think about it, as I study scripture, as I ponder what others with far greater minds than mine have said, there is one thing, I believe we should not compartmentalize. That one thing, worshipping God.  You might even say that worship is the box that holds all of the drawers of who we are.

A number of people have said that worship is not something we do, rather it is about a lifestyle.  As one person writes, “Early Christians viewed their whole life as being an act of worship, a living sacrifice offered to God.”  Another notes, “Worship refers to the way we acknowledge God’s worth; the way our knowledge affects the way we live.”

In the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament we find, “Let us offer a continual sacrifice to praise God.”  In other words, we are called to worship God continually, not just on Sunday mornings.

I find the idea of bringing God into every drawer in my life and praising God is each area of my life to be challenging.  That said, I find the words of William Temple to be helpful with regard to what we are talking about this morning.  William Temple was the Archbishop of Canterbury during World War II, which makes his words even more potent.

William Temple wrote, “Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God.  It is the quickening of conscience by God’s holiness.  The nourishment of mind with God’s truth.  The purifying of imagination by God’s beauty.  The opening of our hearts to God’s love.  The surrender of will to God’s purpose, and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.”

Said another way, worship is submitting all parts of our lives and who we are to God in a spirit of adoration and love that makes us selfless.  It is in this way we can place worship at the heart of all aspects of our lives.

And so, I end with a question.  A question we each are called to answer for ourselves.  That question, “How am I going to worship God all throughout this day?”  And to ask that question each and every day.

I believe the more you and I engage this question, the more we will find our lives, relationships, and our walk with Jesus fundamentally altered.  I think we each will be amazed how much changes when we worship God not just with our lips, but with our lives.