Worship, therefore, is something which grows as we grow in the knowledge and love of God.  We know that only the best is good enough to be offered to God; but it is only rarely that we approach or reach that ideal, and so for most of the time we have to make do with offering something that falls far short.  As G.K. Chesterton once unexpectedly said, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly”, though he would have been the first to agree that we should never be satisfied with doing it badly.

The knowledge and the love of God which dominated the hearts of those medieval builders was given practical and enduring expression by them in the world in which they lived.  So our worship, if it springs from a real relationship with God, will deepen that relationship, and its practical effects will be evident in ourselves as we live our ordinary daily life.  We shall increasingly live, not as those who have been in the Presence of God, but as those who are always in it.

Thus true worship becomes the heartfelt and adoring offering of one’s whole self, and therefore of one’s whole life to God, just because he is God.

Reference

1. Underhill, E. (1937) Worship, London: Nisbet & Co Ltd.