In the old days of ocean sailing, a small boy was traveling on shipboard with his father. About once a day the boy saw the captain stand on deck with sextant in hand, and, as they used to say, "shoot the stars." The boy said to his father, "Daddy, what is the captain doing?" His father replied, "The captain is taking our bearings, seeing where we are, finding out if we are going in the right direction."

As a matter of fact, my dear friends, it is something of this kind that each of us is doing as we are in worship on Sunday morning. We are checking in with God; we are seeing where we are; we are finding out about our directions in relation to his will concerning our journey of life.

We can so easily become confused or lose our way out there in the weekday world of days, and we need this checkpoint. Here we touch base with the Lord of our life, and from him we take our bearings for going on. We can deviate from the course, by winds and currents be carried far astray, unless from time to time we check in with God to set our course again. You see, it is a very important thing we do each week in this Sunday morning hour.