Wordlessness into words?

I think sometimes talking with Jesus all the time, brings a freedom that can't come about any other way......I've gotten back and claimed the peace I had before the enemy struck in all of his crummy abundant lies.

John Piper wrote in The Dangerous Duty of Delight " Worship is the highest moral act a human can perform...when worship is reduced to disinterested duty, it ceases to be worship...worship is a feast of the glorious perfections of God in Christ. God is not honored when we celebrate the high days of our relationship our of a mere sense of duty. He is honored when those days are our delight! "

This shakes my mind...I'm starting to wonder if my perception and perhaps stereo-typical view of worship is wrong...I didn't think I had a
"view" about worship...it's always been something of such heartfelt freedom for me, I've never considered that God calls us in his word to "Delight yourself in the LORD" Psalm 37:4.

Piper continues saying " People ought to come to corporate worship servies to get. They ought to come starved for God...God is profoundly honored when people know that they will die of hunger and thirst unless they have God."

Now I must admit, that the word starved makes my heart flutter a bit. Do I really know what it feels like to be starved for Christ? Do any of us know what it's like to be starved for Christ? What exactly is starving? My mind wanders to the millions of images that have been planted in my mind over the span of my lifetime of small children with limp appendages and big, bowling ball bellies. They are without the comforts of life and completely helpless...they're always crying out for a hope. Is that how I am to come to Jesus in worship? Helpless as a small, unfed, bowling ball bellied little child? Awaiting His living waters and bread of life to cleanse my needs sufficiently? Come starved to worship...

Many worship songs speak of being hungry for Christ...hungry to seek after Him. But this word starved, I can't quite get over the intensity of it. When you're hungry, what do you do? You eat right? My mind is beginning to think that sometimes we allow God to be our peanut butter and jelly sandwich, instead of the living water and bread of life that fills our empty bellies. We come adorned in our designer jeans, straightened hair, hungry to feel His living pursuit...then...when we feel satisfied...and our hunger has been quenched...we turn around and leave.

Perhaps I"m being too "deep" with this...but why would I come hungry for Christ, when I could come starved??? My heart longs to be filled with Him. I guess I see hunger on a "need to basis". When we're hungry we feed ourselves...but when we feel full...we forget about eating. When we're starving...our only longing, our only hope, help and supply can come from the One who quenches our thirst and hunger. Stravation requires a process...to nourish an unnourished child, they don't gobble down a full course meal and walk away...they aren't hungry...they're starving. Instead, recovery from this starvation is a process. Worship is a journey with Christ...it doesn't happen just every weekend and go on vacation Monday-Friday/Saturday until we get hungry again. We must be fed in continuous increasing portions.

Come starving to worship... "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God." Psalm 42:1
When I think of "panting" I think of a little dog who's run laps around a big yard and it now, helplessly out of breath, waiting to lap up the water his master has given him. When the Lord leaves you breathless...don't you pant for Him? Are you starving for Christ?

Come starving to worship...may your soul pant for Jesus. :)
OOoooOOh mine does...Be blessed friends!

"You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." -Psalm 16:11 (NKJV)