We are to worship God, not because his ego needs it, but because without worship, our experience and enjoyment of God are not complete. We worship God not so much because he needs it, but because we do.

I need to worship.

I need to worship because without it I can forget that I have a Big God beside me and live in fear. I need to worship because without it I can forget his calling and begin to live in a spirit of self-preoccupation. I need to worship because without it I lose a sense of wonder and gratitude and plod through life with blinders on. I need to worship because my natural tendency is toward self-reliance and stubborn independence.

I believe it is not an accident that the story of Peter walking on the water ends the way it does. “When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’” There is a pattern at work here that recurs repeatedly in Scripture and that needs to become part of my life as well: God reveals himself. So we reflect on what God has done and respond in worship. And our understanding of God grows.

Jesus “passes by.” This passing by may show itself in a highly dramatic way—a burning bush, a pillar of fire, a walk on the water. But often it happens in ways that are easily missed—in a still small voice, through a baby in an obscure manger. God may “pass by” for you in the comforting words of a friend, or in the beauty of a spring day when the earth begins to come back to life and you realize the heavens really “are telling the glory of God.”

Then sometimes it will be in the act of getting out of the boat that I see Jesus passing by and I see a God who is bigger than I had imagined. — John Ortberg, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get out of the Boat (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008).

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