By Dennis Messimer

Recently we were at our friend Jim’s house, enjoying homemade ice cream. Among the guests were several international students. Jim asked a student from Taiwan how people in Taiwan worshipped. Soon we heard an explanation that included incense burning and “god money.” Then Jim asked the student if he worshipped here in the States. When he said no, Jim asked if he missed worshipping, and once again the reply was no. Jim said, “Whenever I neglect worshipping my God, I really miss it.”

An African friend of ours once said, “If I am not physically tired after a church service, I have not really worshipped.” Another African friend said, “What white people do not realize is that when you sing in church, you have to sing with your whole body.”

Our worship may take different forms, and our comfort zone in worship
may be shaped more by our upbringing than anything else, but we are programmed to worship. In our ministry we have contact with many students and visiting professors from the mainland of China. Often their testimony
goes something like this: “From a very young age I was told that there is no God. I was told that if I would study hard, succeed in school, and get a good job, I would find happiness in life. I did all that, but I found that there was still an  emptiness. Thankfully, I have found God, and the void in my life has changed to joy.”

When God created us in his image, the desire to commune with him was
there. We may repress or ignore that desire, but it will never go away. It is easy to understand the joy the Israelites felt when they were once again able to worship their God. 

Dennis Messimer is minister to international students with the Christian Campus House in Columbia, Missouri. He and his wife, Linda, served as missionaries for 39 years in Belgium, South Africa, and Mozambique. They have four children and will soon welcome their eighth grandchild into their family. (Dennis was also editor Shawn McMullen’s fifth-grade Sunday school teacher.)