Paint and Worship

There's a word use that I hear in Christian circles a lot these days that bothers me.

“The worship was really good in church today.”

“Did you hear the worship on Sunday?”

In each of these cases they are talking about singing.

Worship is far more than singing.

As I spent my four days slowly and carefully attempting to achieve excellence in my painting in our bedroom a few weeks ago I worshiped.

Each paint stroke was an act of worship. I strove for excellence in that room for the glory of God. I spent hours honouring God through my work. That was my worship.

This is the third reason I believe in excellence, even excellence in corners that no one else can see. Every moment of our day is, or should be, an act of worship. Those acts of worship should be the very best that I can do for God.

I want my students to understand that everything we do, great and small, seen or unseen, should be this kind of worship.

Just singing on Sunday isn't good enough.

Paint and Excellence

Steve Jobs got a lot of things right.

Now, I'm not a fan of his management style but I do quite like his insistence that even the inside or backside of his products be beautiful, even if the only person who might see it was the repairman.

This is why I was being driven crazy while I was painting our bedroom this summer.

You see, whoever painted the room before me was sloppy and messy. It looked like they didn't even try to protect the floor as there were paint splatters all over the room.

Then there's the person who did the drywall which is uneven and not sanded well at all.

And that's just in the room itself!

Now we come to the closet. Crooked walls, brush strokes on the floor and ceiling. Clearly both the person who built the room and the person who painted it were not striving for excellence.

I did.

There I was on the floor of the closet painting as carefully as I could.

Someone might say, "But who's ever going to see that back corner that's going to be hidden by boxes and clothes?"

To that question I have three responses:

1. I saw it. 
2. I have to live in that room every day knowing the work I put into it. Even if it wasn't my room and just a job I did, I would have to walk around knowing whether I did my best or not.
3. And one more reason I'll get to a little later.