When I first started really studying the Bible in earnest, I found a God who seemed very concerned with being the center of His creation’s attention.  You can’t help but notice throughout the scripture that God expects to be worshipped… demands it even.  I had a hard time coming to terms with a God who claims to be love, claims to be good, claims to be perfect, and yet also seems at times to be completely preoccupied with His own glory.  He can seem to be a very vain God indeed.  This is something I struggled with for quite awhile, trying to rectify in my mind these character traits of God and getting them to mesh in some sensible way.

This, for me, was one of those things that took time to come into focus.  I’ve learned to really cherish the hard teachings in the word of God — the ones that make me scratch my head — because they are the very teachings that keep me searching for answers, keep me in prayer asking for God’s help, and keep me in the always rewarding process of trying to get to know the unknowable God.  After all, if you could read the Bible one time through and understand it all completely, why would you ever pick it up again?  I firmly believe that God has left His Word full of mystery, metaphor, poetry, and symbolism to keep us coming back over and over, and teaching us to understand it more deeply with each search.

The answer to this particular question – is our God a vain God? — came in two parts.  The first was the simple realization that God demands glory and worship because He is worthy of it.  He is the only Being truly worthy of it.  He is the only Being worth giving glory and worship to.  We, as humans, are going to worship something or somebody.  Turn the TV on any hour of the day and you will see it.  We worship movie stars, athletes, comedians, reality show contestants, and even politicians.  Walk down the street and you will see the worship of name brand logos, nice cars, huge status symbol homes, and perfect physiques.  We align ourselves more intensely with our favorite college football teams than we sometimes do with our own families.  We are constantly trying to give glory and praise to almost everything around us…  almost like that’s what we were made to do.

But that is only part of the equation.  Of course God is worthy of our praise and worship.  If you believe in God, that should be a no-brainer. But the second part of the equation is what really turned the lights on for me.

I believe the reason we tend to seek out things to worship around us is because we are literally designed to worship.  He doesn’t demand worship from us for His sake, He is trying to show us what will fulfill us as the human race.  He knows that the only thing that will truly fulfill us is the worship of Him.  He is what we are seeking.  He is what we are desiring.  He is the missing piece of our lives that we are trying so desperately to fill with everything in this world.  And this isn’t some theological position for me.  It has become true to me because I have experienced it so intensely in times of worshipping Him.

Have you ever noticed that nothing in this life really seems to fully satisfy?  As soon as you get the job you always wanted, you realize there is another even better job that you want.  As soon as you build your dream home you begin to discover things you would change or do differently with the next dream house.  As soon as you move to the city you’ve always wanted to live in, you begin to discover that it’s not the paradise you hoped it would be and begin wondering if the grass is greener somewhere else.  It’s like God is trying to tell us something in all of this.  Why would He have given us this intense desire for satisfaction in life and then leave us no way to completely fulfill that desire?   Well, He has given us the one thing that will give us satisfaction, the one thing that will finally complete us as humans.  He has given us Himself.  I can tell you that the only times I’ve felt completely whole in my life have been in times of worship.  When my gaze and my desire is on Him and Him alone, I am complete.  To borrow a cheesy line from Jerry McGuire…  He completes me.  All those feelings of being unsatisfied with the world around me melt away in Him.  I was designed to worship Him.

Unfortunately, it’s not a condition I can permanently enjoy until I am with Him in eternal life.  I think I’m getting better and better at being able to be in that place more often, and for longer periods of time, but it is still fleeting.  I still have misplaced desires that I try to fulfill with the world around me.  I’m still learning daily to turn these things over to Him and seek His ability to fulfill my life rather than seek my own ways.  I’m sure it’ll be a lifelong process.  But I am so grateful to have found what so many are still searching for in all the wrong places.

If you are reading this and are struggling with feelings of doubt, fear, disillusionment, depression, or lack of purpose, I encourage you to worship God.  Spend some real time seeking Him in prayer.  Spend some real time in the word of God, learning who He really is.  Spend some time singing praises to Him.  Spend some time confessing to Him and offering Him thanks.  Spend some time just kneeling at His feet and giving Him glory and honor.  If these things seem strange or uncomfortable to do, tell Him about it.  Ask for His help in learning to worship Him.  He is so eager to teach us how.  Find fellow believers that can come alongside of you in worship.

I was taught in elementary school that our basic needs are air, water, food, shelter, and love in order to stay alive.  But if we want to do more than just stay alive — if we want to live as we were designed to live — we must worship God.