The Air I Breathe - Louie Giglio

Published by Multnomah Books/WaterBrook Multnomah: Colorado Springs, CO/New York, 2003.

This short book (even shorter than I realised as a section at the back is made up of 'group study questions' rather than being part of the book proper) is all about worship - what it is, why God is worthy of it, and some ways in which a person can engage with worship in their day to day lives. Louie Giglio is a fairly well-known speaker in Christian circles, and although he is not known as a singer he writes as the head of sixsteprecords, a worship-centric music label in the USA. Not that worship is about music per se.

The book is intentionally a fairly easy read rather than a dense theological tome, and as such some of the insights Giglio shares are not 'new'... but they are good reminders. "We may say we value this thing or that thing more than any other," Giglio writes, "but the volume of our actions speak louder than our words. In the end, our worship is more about what we do than what we say." (page 13). He reminds the reader that worship is a heart-attitude rather than lip-service. "That means we have to be careful about what we're saying...what we're singing. And who we're singing to. Sometimes we would be better off saying nothing than standing there lying to the face of God. Our worship would honour Him more if we just stopped singing and realigned our heart with His." (page 118-119).

One insight that I appreciated and have been pondering on for a while comes from the fact that God is absolutely worthy of our worship. I realise that God is bigger than we will ever truly understand, and had 'known' that He was therefore 'worthy' of worship from that vantage point. But Giglio adds to that fact the insight that, in being worthy of worship, and in knowing He is worthy of worship, therefore: "He knows the best thing He can give us is Himself. So in calling us to prize Him above all else, God is both gaining the praise that is rightfully His alone and causing us to gain the greatest treasure we will ever know." (page 31).

Giglio also suggests a "30-day worship challenge", where the reader reads a passage from the Psalms each day, identifies an attribute of God from the passage, and focuses on that throughout the day. Since reading that section of the book I have been attempting to do that, and would recommend it as a good way to help refocus on our King.

Worth reading.

Completed 9 December 2021.


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