In high school, I had a friend named Al who had tunnel vision. He had no peripheral vision, so his eyes quickly darted back and forth all the time as he tried to catch the whole picture in front of him. He could only see where he was directly looking. His vision was constricted and concentrated on one thing at a time.
I believe God wants us to have tunnel vision for Him in our times of worship.
He wants us to stop the eyes of our hearts and minds from darting back and forth, so we can temporarily forget everything around us and see only Him.
Nurturing that ability to focus completely and exclusively on God is important to achieving the worship intimacy He so desires from us.
One of my favorite Greek words for worship is proskuneo, and it literally means “to bow and kiss.” Imagine how impossible it would be to get ourselves to a place of submissively bowing and kissing the feet of Jesus if we couldn’t get our focus off of everything else going on around us! You can’t kiss someone you’re not looking at!
True worship requires a focus that’s all-encompassing – the attention and response of all I am.
And I believe that tunnel vision for God only happens as a by-product of stillness.
Stillness these days is increasingly difficult to come by it seems. But we must view it as nonnegotiable for gaining knowledge and intimacy with God. It’s crucial for calming the heart and mind. And it’s crucial for truly seeing and hearing.
We gain nothing with the drive-by glance mentality when it comes to our relationship to God. Our heavenly Father is always calling us to Himself, saying, “Come to me. Be still and commune with My Spirit. Let Me pour out My love and grace over you. Come often. Stay long. Be still. I have so much for you here.”
“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10a).
And the second half of that verse shows the incredible results of being still. “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:10). Worship!
Worship is the result of achieving glorious tunnel vision for your God – which is born out of stillness. It’s born out of seeking, seeing, and responding to Him alone.
Worship out of that place is the worship that God so longs for from us.
“When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to You,
‘Your face, O LORD, I shall seek’” (Psalm 27:8).
What do you see as the greatest enemy to tunnel vision for God in worship?
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