For your servant vowed a vow while I lived at Geshur in Aram, saying, ‘If the LORD will indeed bring me back to Jerusalem, then I will offer worship to the LORD.’” – 2 Samuel 15:8 (Context – 2 Sam. 13-18)

I like to play golf by myself from time to time. Not physically by myself, but instead of with friends, I tag along with a three or foursome of strangers. It is a good chance to meet new people and share the gospel. Usually, I’ll find out a little bit about the fellow golfers and offer a prayer for something going on in their life. However, sometimes the prayer offer is in vain and I never follow through.

Maybe you can relate to this. You see an old friend who tells you about an event or undesirable circumstance and you give back a standard “Christian” response when you say, “I’ll pray for you.” Do you mean it? Will we actually pray for them or has it become just as much a habit in our contemporary language as “bless you” follows a sneeze?

Absalom may have said he was going to worship the Lord when he returned to Jerusalem, but we know his motives and his heart was far from being concerned about worshipping God. He wanted the throne and he would kill anyone who got in his way. In a sense, his words recorded in 2 Samuel read just like the empty promises so often passed out without a second thought.

What would it mean to be so convicted about your worship that every time you met someone who needed prayer, you didn’t just say you would pray and do it, but actually prayed for that person at the very moment you realize they needed prayer? That is the kind worshipper I want to be, one who worships God with honesty and courage at every possible moment.