From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. (Genesis 12:8) NIV
Worship is giving God the best He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard a thing for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded. God will never let you hold a spiritual thing for yourself; it has to be given back to Him that He may make it a blessing to others.
Bethel is the symbol of communion with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abraham pitched his tent between the two. The measure of the worth of our public activity with God is the private, profound communion we have with Him. Rush is wrong every time; there is always plenty of time to worship God.
Quiet days with God may be a snare to some. We have to pitch our tents where we will always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be.
There are not three stages of spiritual life – worship, waiting, and work. Some of us go in jumps like spiritual frogs; we jump from worship to waiting and from waiting to work. God’s idea is that the three should go together. They were always together in the life of Our Lord. He was unhurried, and He was watchful and attentive. It is a discipline. We can’t jump into it and expect to do it immediately. It takes time and learning on our part; however, it is a goal worth achieving that will bring us closer to Him!