pointe of worship

iWant

I'm starting to believe that the folks at Apple are pretty smart. If you haven't noticed, and I'm sure you have, the products they market are as eye appealing as they are technologically brilliant. The iMac, iPod, iPhone, iTouch... my eyes literally burn when I watch the ads. Recently, as I prepared to purchase a new cell phone, I spent months researching (yearning, craving, coveting) the iPhone. In the end I needed a phone with better call quality, couldn't justify the extra $30/month required data plan, and Verizon sweet-talked me with a hefty discount. My heart still aches. I'm still quite happy with the phone I chose (the Dare), but cannot shake a growing desire to purchase the iTouch (the iPhone without the phone). Of course, my obsession doesn't stop with Apple. Yesterday I found myself reading about the new Kindle2, a small, portable, wireless electronic book-reader thingy. Even though 95% of the books I read are for seminary, I began wondering... how much does this cost? ($350... ouch!) Could we afford this? ("absolutely not" says my wife's subconscious brain transponder).  And what does it matter? I don't read so many books that I need a small, portable, wireless electronic book-reader thingy. But, and the guys will back me up here, it's a new form of technology (really, it is quite impressive) and we (men) must acquire all things of this nature. If we do not, we are not real men and have failed at achieving what is written in our genetic code. 

I'm starting to wonder if marketing strategies are built around the sin of envy. When I think about it, how many of the things I want are simply a desire of having what someone else has?  Envy...iWant.  

p.s. - this was written on an iMac.

worship

From Dan Kimball's "Emerging Worship":

"Worship is 'the act of adoring and praising God, that is, ascribing worth to God as the one who deserves homage and service.' The most frequent Greek New Testament word for worship is proskuneo which stems from pros ("toward") and kuneo ("to kiss"). This is an act of reverence and devotion, and in biblical times often involved bowing, kneeling, and lying prostrate in reverence before a great and holy God. Worship is the way to express our love and praise to Jesus, who first loved us and gave himself up for us (Ephesians 5:25).  In a worship gathering, we create a place where we can express love, devotion, adoration, and praise to God. But worship is not something we do only once a week on Sunday morning. Worship is a lifestyle of being in love with God and in awe of him all week long (emphasis added).  It is offering our love, our adoration, and our praise to him through all our lives.  Our minds, our hearts, our bodies, our marriages, our families, our jobs - everything should be offered to him in worship. This includes what we think about, what we do, what we say, what we eat, and what we spend time doing - they are all acts of worship."

... not much I can add to that.

Mitch