5 Minutes More Than 5 Hours

RESTAURANTS

I rarely use this venue for anything other than Bible Word Studies to help and bless others with what has blessed me, but this recent experience has left me with an urgency in my spirit, that has compelled me to render a few observational thoughts, so please bear with me.

My family travelled to another city on a brief holiday, and went to a couple different restaurants; both highly rated on the internet, and yet the experiences proved to be less than favorable in both cases. The one was a buffet style of Oriental cuisine, but the food was anything but fresh; discolored from sitting for an extended period of time; lacking in flavor; and one of the kitchen staff seemed to just pile on the recently cooked food, on top of the food that had already been sitting, leaving the food already in the buffet containers, at the bottom of the pile, consistently less attractive for consumption.

DISAPPOINTING

We ventured, to another town, and to another, apparently highly rated "family" restaurant, whose decor and appearance seemed to offer a good degree of promise. This experience, again, proved to be extremely disappointing. The food was lacking in flavor; vegetables were heated up, frozen after thoughts; the meat was tasteless and disappointing; and the service average. What had all the appearance of a nice family restaurant, with the "home cooked meal" promise, and visually clean and attractive, offered a sadly less than desirable offering, of a mid-day meal.

SETTLE FOR LESS

Though these two restaurants were rated highly on the internet, it was quite obvious that people in the area had adopted a "settle for less" attitude, of accepting something far below the standard of quality cuisine, perhaps because many of them had not been exposed to something better, in the area. However, based on my families experience, we would never frequent those establishments again, simply because the overall quality was so far below what we have been accustomed to. It is not to say that we are used to a "posh" lifestyle of constantly eating out, but we do want quality for what we pay for.

PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE

We also took in services from a couple different churches, in our brief trip. The one had all the marks of excellence, with greeters at the door; a large spacious foyer; it's own coffee bar, to provide that caffeine fix, to kick start the day; and a sports oriented children's church. Our initial thoughts were that this was amazing, and that this large church obviously was very successful. However, when the service started, everything was an extremely well orchestrated professional performance, where we felt more like spectators at a concert, [a seemingly growing phenomena at some large congregations], than actual participants engaging in corporate worship. The preaching was more a "motivational speech", using scripture to fit the motivational message, rather than letting the Word be the basis of instruction.

BLATANTLY ABSENT

It was only one service, and perhaps not fair to draw conclusions, but what was quite obvious, was that very few people were engaged in worship; it appeared that even fewer people had bibles with them; and sadly, and most striking, despite the professional performance; the roaming cameras; the lights; and the smoke show; blatantly absent, at least to my perception, was the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

NO SMOKE SHOW

Since it was the early service, of that particular church, we were able to catch the morning service of another local church, in the same city. The service had already started when we arrived, so we slipped in the back. There were no roaming cameras; no flashing lights; no smoke show; and only a couple hundred people, but members actually had bibles with them; they were engaged, participating in worship, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, in worship, was powerful!

HIS PRESENCE

Like the restaurant experiences, I want quality; I want value; I want the Lord! I don't want, and I don't need a professional performance; I don't need a "rock concert" worship service; I don't need smoke and lights, but I do need His Presence. Give me 5 minutes of His presence more than 5 hours of professional performance.

You Are God's Best and God's Best is Yours