As the genuine religious impulse becomes dominant, adoration more and more takes charge. 'I come to seek God because I need Him', may be an adequate formula for prayer. 'I come to adore His splendour, and fling myself and all that I have at His feet', is the only possible formula for worship.
Interpretation
The essence of worship is found in adoration and surrender rather than in seeking personal needs.
Evelyn Underhill emphasizes that true worship stems from a deep adoration of the divine rather than simply making requests for personal needs. As one matures in their spiritual journey, the focus shifts from seeking God for assistance to a profound desire to appreciate, honor, and give oneself completely to the divine, suggesting that worship is about recognizing the beauty and majesty of God.
In practice
In a sermon about the importance of true worship, a pastor might quote this to emphasize the shift from personal needs to adoring God.
Nothing in all nature is so lovely and so vigorous, so perfectly at home in its environment, as a fish in the sea. Its surroundings give to it a beauty, quality, and power which are not its own. We take it out, and at once a poor, limp dull thing, fit for nothing, is gasping away its life. So the soul, sunk in God, living the life of prayer, is supported, filled, transformed in beauty, by a vitality and a power which are not its own.
As the beautiful does not exist for the artist and poet alone—though these can find in it more poignant depths of meaning than other men—so the world of Reality exists for all; and all may participate in it, unite with it, according to their measure and to the strength and purity of their desire.
God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament.
Spiritual reading is a regular, essential part of the life of prayer, and particularly is it the support of adoring prayer.
I have an idea heaven will be both absolutely happy and absolutely dark, to protect us from the blaze of God.
Much is now being said about evangelism; but before we get effective evangelism, we have to get effective evangelists. Evangelism is useless unless it is the work of one devoted to God, willing and glad to suffer all things for God, penetrated by the attractiveness of God. New machinery, adaptations and adjustments, are not the first need... but more devoted, adoring, sacrificial souls.
We see baptism as the starting point in our journey of discipleship. Our daily walk with Jesus Christ leads to peace and purpose in this life and profound joy and eternal salvation in the world to come.
Supremely, spiritual directors/mentors/pastors are persons who have a sense of being 'established' in God. Otherwise they are too dangerous to be allowed into the soul space of others.
Let Christ turn your natural optimism into Christian hope, your energy into moral virtue, your good will into genuine self-sacrificin g love! This is the path you are called to take. This is the path to overcoming all that threatens hope, virtue and love in your lives and in your culture. In this way your youth will be a gift to Jesus and to the world.
There is no joy in the soul that has forgotten what God prizes.
It is precisely in times of spiritual dryness that we must hold on to our spiritual discipline so that we can grow into new intimacy with God.
Prayer, as a means of drawing ever new strength from Christ, is concretely and urgently needed.
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