Praise and Worship

I've been doing a lot of thinking about praise and worship for the last few days. Stuck in my bed for most of the last two weeks, I have begun to miss my daily guitar time with the Lord. I can't sing, my voice is shot, and my nose has been running nonstop and I have developed a terrible cough. It has been impossible for me to worship with singing. So this got me thinking. What other ways are there to worship God? How do you worship if you can't sing? My whole being depends upon the worship of my God. My peace comes from it.
I have always thought of praise and worship as one entity, ("P and W"). I began to realize that there is a difference. Praise is the verbal outpouring of our love for our God, whether in word or in song. Worship encompasses praise but is much much more than just a verbal word or song.
I began to think about those who could not worship with praise. Not just temporarily, like me, but people who could not sing EVER. People who are sick, or elderly, or handicapped. How do they worship the Lord? People like Corrie ten Boom, who was silenced by strokes the last five years of her life. The glory of God surrounded her right up until the day of her death, yet she could not speak a word, she couldn't talk, she couldn't write or communicate in any way.

I began to think I was on to something. I asked God to show me how to worship not just in singing and praising Him but in every single way possible. As the words left my mouth I remembered a verse from Proverbs, "In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths." (chap 3 vs 6)
I began to realize that the act of worship can be performed in every single thing you do. Your whole life can be an act of worship. You can acknowledge (and thus worship) simply by telling him Thank You for the things he has blessed you with. You perform an act of worship every single time you hear his voice directing you which way to go when a decision has to be made, and following his voice. You worship every single time you tell your kids a Bible story. Setting a Godly example for your kids is an act of worship. Even the smallest things, such as resisting the urge to watch that funny (but unGodly) tv show that you like so much is an act of worship because you are acknowledging that He has no part in that, and so you should not either.
Worship is not simply doing these things, however, it is the LONGING inside to please God's heart. You can do all of these things mentioned above mechanically and there is no worship involved. But when you follow that burning desire in your heart to acknowledge Him in ALL your ways, not just with your voice, then when your voice is gone His peace will still be with you.

"Embed"

I got out the old guitar and strummed the worn out strings. The sound was slightly off key and more than a little twangy. I tried for a while to get it in tune but I couldn't’t get it exactly right. After a few minutes I just decided to get on with it and let it be.
I began to sing and play some simple worship tunes on the guitar. After a few minutes the frantic feeling of “not having enough time for this” began to dissipate and peace took over, just as it had every single other time I made the effort to worship. I knew this was right where I needed to be at this minute, this hour, this season of my life.
I reflected on a conversation my best friend and I had been having the day before. We had both been talking about current events and how much it scared us to see how corrupt our country had become. How out of control the world was, with all of it’s earthquakes, and floods, and famines, and wars. In short all of the things that would happen in the end times. I had not had words to comfort either one of us. I asked the Lord to give me the words he wanted us to hear concerning all of this.
I closed my eyes and just strummed for a minute or two, and then I heard it. “Embed yourself in Me”, said a voice from within. I knew immediately that it was the voice of the Lord. It was not my voice, but a very calm peaceful commanding voice, a voice of authority. “Embed yourself in Me.” The meaning was very clear and concise, there was no beating around the bush, no guesswork in trying to figure it out,
I decided to look it up on the computer to see what Merriam Webster had to say about the word Embed. Here is what it said. “Embed: To enclose closely in or as if in a matrix. i.e. fossils embedded in stone.
I wondered about the word matrix and decided to look it up as well.
MATRIX. An environment or material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure."
 What this meant was not exactly crystal clear, but I knew I was onto something. Later on I just "happened" to see a tv show in which a scientist (who was unearthing a fossil) explained in simple terms that a matrix was what the object was surrounded by, like a pebble dropped in a bowl of water. The water would be the matrix. In a fossil the earth or stone around it would be the matrix. When I heard that, the meaning of matrix became crystal clear.
I called my friend, who just “happened” to be having a conversation with her husband about exactly the things we had been talking about, at exactly the moment of my call. The timing was literally “out of this world”. “Embed yourself in Me”, I told her the Lord had told me. She became very, very excited and I swear at one point I heard her sniffling. I know my best friend well enough after twenty years to know when something affects her enough to make her cry. I wanted to cry too.
Then there is this. In order for a fossil to embed itself in a stone it has to die.
We have to die to ourselves and embed ourselves in the arms of our Father, from whom we have our being.

“Embed yourself in Me”.

When there’s no money in the bank.
“Embed yourself in Me”.

When you lose your job.
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When your children are rebellious and you don’t know what to do with them,
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When they are talking about holding your daughter back in school and you don't kow how to tell her and it's ripping your heart out.
"Embed yourself in Me."

When your teenagers don't return your love...and it's ripping your heart out
"Embed yourself in Me."

When you’re afraid your husband is going to leave you…and he does…
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When your beloved grandmother passes away
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When you find out your nine month old niece has cancer and has had it since birth
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When you hear that faraway voice on the phone telling you there has been a car accident…
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When your house is falling apart and you can't fix it
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When you find yourself consumed with anger, hurt, resentment…
“Embed yourself in Me.”

Likewise:

When the money is flowing
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When your kids turn their back on their rebellion…
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When they bring home straight “A”s from school
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When they put their arms around you and tell you they love you
"Embed yourself in Me."

When your husband comes home and your marriage is renewed
"Embed yourself in Me."

When everybody is healthy
“Embed yourself in Me.”

When you couldn’t be happier
“Embed yourself in Me.”

In Everything you do “Embed Yourself in Me.”