Anna

She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. (Luke 2:37)(NLT)

This worship profile of Anna is from the Praise and Worship Study Bible published by Tyndale House Publishers. It is a great study Bible for all who want to learn more about biblical praise and worship. Let's see what we can learn from Anna's worship:

Anna

Waiting seemed to be a life calling for Anna, an eighty-four-year-old woman in the Temple who greeted Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus. Everything we know about her can be summarized in a few words: She was a widow and lived as a prophet in the Temple. As Luke tells us, the Temple became her home, and she stayed there day and night, worshiping God continually in anticipation of the Messiah. In today's society, where everything is instant and time is considered money, many lessons can be learned from Anna's patience in worship.

Anna the Worshiper

Anna recognized that waiting meant preparing for God's leading. She disciplined herself to put all else aside to listen to his voice.

For Anna, waiting was not simply marking time. It was a period of joyful expectation as she watched for the fulfillment of God's promise.

Learning from Anna

Waiting should not be confused with laziness, inactivity, or purposelessness. It involves trusting God and surrendering our life to him. When we learn to wait, we learn to rely on God's faithfulness instead of our own ability.

We should pray for patience and learn to recognize and respect this quiet gift in others. Anna waited faithfully for her people's Redeemer, and God rewarded her patience by allowing her to see the Messiah with her own eyes.

Following the Example

The Bible admonishes us in more than fifty places to wait on the Lord. One way to do this is to regularly seek out a quiet, solitary place, removed from the hectic concerns of daily life, where we can read God's Word and pray. This time of meditation can helf us focus our thoughts on God and find our security in him. Practice setting aside a time each day to be alone in God's presence. This simple exercise will help you learn to wait on the Lord, as Anna did long ago.

Praying for Others

"Pray one for another." James 5:16

Here is another devotional by Charles Spurgeon that encourages us to lift up others with our prayer time. Let us not be so self-centered that we forget to lift up the burdens of our brothers and sisters with our petitions.

As an encouragement cheerfully to offer intercessory prayer, remember that such prayer is the sweetest God ever hears, for the prayer of Christ is of this character. In all the incense which our Great High Priest now puts into the golden censer, there is not a single grain for himself. His intercession must be the most acceptable of all supplications--and the more like our prayer is to Christ's, the sweeter it will be; thus while petitions for ourselves will be accepted, our pleading for others, having in them more of the fruits of the Spirit,more love, more faith, more brotherly kindness, will be, through the precious merits of Jesus, the sweetest oblation that we can offer to God, the very fat of our sacrifice.

Remember, again, that intercessory prayer is exceedingly prevalent. What wonders it has wrought! The Word of God teems with its marvelous deeds. Believer, thou hast a mighty engine in thy hand, use it well, use it constantly, use it with faith, and thou shalt surely be a benefactor to thy brethren. When thou hast the King's ear, speak to him for the suffering members of his body. When thou art favoured to draw very near to his throne, and the King saith to thee, "Ask, and I will give thee what thou wilt," let thy petitions be, not for thyself alone, but for the many who need his aid. If thou hast grace at all, and art not an intercessor, that grace must be small as a grain of mustard seed. Thou hast just enough grace to float thy soul clear from the quicksand, but thou hast no deep floods of grace, or else thou wouldst carry in thy joyous bark a weighty cargo of the wants of others, and thou wouldest bring back from thy Lord, for them, rich blessings which but for thee they might no have obtained.

"Oh, let my hands forget their skill,

My toungue be silent, cold, and still,

This bounding heart forget to beat,

If I forget the mercy-seat!"

Running After Him

The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from my enemies. (Psalm 18:2-3)

This worship devotional is by David Good from his book Captivated by the Heart of God.

My son, Christ, will turn 18 in a few short weeks. He has his own car, a steady job, and spends most of his time now not including his parents. He expressed his angst recently upon discovering that I am now on Twitter because that will make it harder for him to keep me out of his teenage world. But with all of the adjustments his growing up brings, I am learning a lot about worship from him.

It seems just like yesterday that I was bringing him a drink in the middle of the night or fixing him a snack when he got hungry. Those days are gone and that is a good thing, though I do miss that oddly enough. He is now old enough that his parents don't have to cater to his every need (though there are days when his attitude communicates the complete opposite of that). When he's hungry, which is every waking moment, he comes barging out of his room and grabs as much stuff he can carry back to his room to eat. When he's thirsty, he gets himself a glass of milk. He drinks at least 5 gallons of liquid a day. I know this because every glass ends up in his room leaving his mother and I having to drink directly from the faucet. Were it not for his foraging for nourishment we would never see him, so for this we are thankful. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. What does this have to do with Psalm 18 you ask? Everything.

David states the fact that the Lord is the provision for everything he needs--my rock, fortress, deliverer, God, strength, buckler, horn of salvation and high tower. Then he states, "I will call upon the Lord...". I looked up the Hebrew phrase call upon, and I was amazed at what I discovered. That phrase literally means to accost, to approach often in an aggressive manner. So here's my point. Though God provides everything David needs, he doesn't wait for the Lord to bring it to him, but rather runs after everything the Lord has already made available to him. Are you beginning to see the analogy? Chris has matured to the point now that he doesn't wait for his dad to bring him what he needs. He knows that any time he hungers and thirsts for something, all he has to do is go after it. That's worship in a nutshell! Worship is the act of running after God and grabbing hold of all that He has made available to us as our Father.

Are you hungry and thirsty for something? Are you desperate? Everything you need is just a few steps away. Go after it. Accost God in your worship. That is when we are saved from our enemies!