I walked into the small restaurant rented by my employer for the annual Christmas party.  My fellow employees already enjoying the crowded space, free food and alcohol, and music so loud it was hard to think.  I found a couple of co-workers to sit with and watched the evening progress.  More food, more alcohol, more people laughing loudly at things that weren’t really funny, karaoke, and people dancing like their lives depended on doing the “Choo Choo Train”.
I watched everyone expending all their energy on having a good time.  I wondered, “Why?”  Then I pretended  I didn’t believe in God.  My few minutes of “atheism” created a  painful empty feeling inside.  I knew then that without my belief in God I would also be desperately searching for an escape from the emptiness inside with anything that would temporarily make me forget  the annoying pain of worshipping the empty space of self.

Take your everyday, ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking-around life and place it before God as an offering.  Romans 12:1 (Msg)