One day in Thailand I had the opportunity to spend the morning with two beautiful women I met in one of the bars I visited this past month. I was so excited to spend time with them outside of the bar. When I asked them what they wanted to do, they said visit temples. They were so excited to show me and Jessa the temples around town, and we ended up visiting 6 or 7. We had a fun afternoon laughing, joking, and trying to understand one another, but as we went from temple to temple, I couldn't help but be disturned as I watched these women bow down to gold statues of Buddha. They would kneel in front of him with heads bowed down by the floor and pray, and then place a flower or money in a vase. As we walked around the outside of the temples they would ring all the bells because it brought them “good luck.”
Another morning I watched a 16 year old boy carry out incense and place it in front of a “spirit house.” I watched him fold his hands under his chin and bow his head. He closed his eyes and prayed and then placed more incense on another part of the house. I watched him walk past me and back into the restaurant I was sitting outside of. A few seconds later he came back out with flowers in hand, placed them around the porch of the house. He walked up to me, took my empty bowl and glass, and went back inside.
I walked the streets every night seeing men decked out in attire that made them look like women. Women were so made up it was hard to even guess what many of them really looked like under their masked faces. Many of the men who came into these bars were already completely drunk, or well on their way to being drunk. I had conversations that I’m sure were forgotten by the next morning.
The thought that constantly consumed my mind was that this is what it looks like to worship the world. To be so in love with the things of the world that you don’t even recognize yourself anymore.
I was so broken for all of these people. I was broken as I thought about how Christ must feel when He sees me worshiping anything that is not Him. I realized even more how we are all created to worship. From our inner most being we long to worship something, someone. We are designed to be most joyful when we are worshiping our creator. He desires for us to delight in Him. As I was broken over broken worship, I realized that from His perspective, He not only sees rebellion, He also sees beauty. He sees beyond what my eyes can see. He sees the end result. He sees who He created these men and women to be, and He knows who they will become.
