Rod Cooper writes:

When I was about 10 years old, I had the privilege of getting up at 4 a.m. to get the cows so we could milk them. As we came in for breakfast, I would smell the beginnings of this soup my mom used to make. She would put in hunks of beef and carrots and peas and potatoes and all kinds of good stuff. And you'd begin to smell it.

I remember coming in at lunch thinking that was what we're going to have. I'd go over to get some, and she'd say, "No, Son, you can't have any yet. You'll have to wait till tonight." We would work hard all afternoon.

And as we came back for the evening meal (that's the only time my dad beat me into the house), we would sit down, and my mom would set this huge cauldron of soup on the table. She would put this ladle in the soup, and the steam would rise off of it. And she would put it down into the bowl, and you could put your face over it and--can you smell it right now?--we would take our spoons and dip in there. It was wonderful.

I remember asking my mother, "Why is it that we had to wait all day on this soup?"

She said, "Son, it needed to simmer so we get all the juices out of all the ingredients. And then they're all mixed together; that's what brings forth that good aroma. And when you taste it, you're getting the best of what's in each ingredient."

That's the way I look at worship. Sunday morning is a culmination of a people who've been simmering all week in the presence of God. When we simmer every day in the presence of God and then come on Sunday morning and mix all of it together, there's an aroma and a smell of the grace and the goodness of God that lifts up to heaven. And God pulls off the lid and goes, "Mmm, that's my people in Galilee Baptist Church." That's worship.