I rejoiced with those who said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
Our feet are standing
in your gates, Jerusalem.

Psalm 122

I still remember the moment I first saw Jerusalem. We were driving from Haifa, where our ship had docked, through the barren landscape of the hill country. Then, coming around a turn in the road, our bus pulled off to the side, we all got out, and there it was, Mount Zion, with the old city and the Dome of the Rock glinting in the sun and the bustling modern settlement strewn out across the valley below.

For a pilgrim like myself it was an emotional moment. I was nineteen and traveling with a unique hodgepodge of humanity armed with a busload of loud but questionable theology. Yet in that moment I was able to step outside of the noise and look upon Jerusalem with the singular and almost private longing of a follower of Jesus coming home.

I didn’t want to break ranks with my fellow travelers, but at the same time I wanted little to do with the tone of glib evangelical slogans and false spiritual superiority. I simply wanted to walk through the city gates, approach the Temple Mount, and know that I was standing on holy ground.

But there I was, about to enter the Holy City for the first time, and so I really did “rejoice with those who said, Let us go up to the house of the Lord.” I do remember holding back some when we walked through the ancient gate, in my heart rejoicing at my own volume and in my own way.

The heart of worship

This is also how I will walk through the front doors of Howard Memorial Presbyterian Church here in Tarboro this morning. I will be rejoicing because I am in “The House of the Lord,” but I may appear muted or subdued. Not because I am an unenthusiastic believer – far from it, but because I will have been quieting my heart on the way down the street and asking God to fill me with love and light and praise.

While I absolutely believe God values authentic, heartfelt enthusiasm, what God appreciates most is something genuine – and for me that is seldom very loud. That is all we are required to bring – not rehearsing something we have been told but presenting our honest selves. Not something prepackaged and showy but the contents of our hungry hearts.

And as for what God wants from us? God only wants everything. All that I am, all that I hope to be… just as I am.

The praise-offering of my whole life – DEREK