What is worship?
This is a question I have been thinking about a lot over the past two months. The worship here is something I was not entirely used to but quickly grew to love. It is so authentic, freeing, intentional, and communal. At training camp, I looked forward to weekday mornings because we always had such sweet, spirit-led sessions, and I would feel like something was missing whenever we didn’t have them. Then there were what we called Revival Nights. These were almost every Friday night and it was similar to the morning sessions but longer, more hype, and just a great way to end the week.
Because of this, my style, viewpoint, and heart posture on worship changed. I learned that everyone’s way of worshiping is so different and it all pleases the Lord because He is worthy of all praise, no matter what it looks like. Before this I was usually thinking about what the people around me thought about how I was worshipping or just what i looked like, but recently, during a sweet worship session in Guatemala, I learned about the word undignified. This means that you appear foolish and unseemly with no care as to what you look like or what others think of you. A word like this is dangerous in our culture because we are always worried about our reputation or looking like we have it all together when in reality, in the long term, it doesn’t matter. Is the Lord not worthy of our raw and authentic praise? When we sing praises to Yahweh we join in with all of heaven who can’t care what they look like because all they can do is be absolutely fixated on the majesty and splendor of the Creator. So lets become undignified because all the honor and dignity belongs to God and not us.
But then there is still a question to be answered: what is worship? So after talking to some people on my squad I came up with a few answers. First of all there was ‘dying to self or complete surrender so that it can only be Him working through us’ along with ‘more of Him less of me’ which relates to Romans 12:1. Also we talked about how the angles sing Holy, Holy, Holy and how its good to sing back to God exactly who he is. Then finally, the most popular response was ‘anything you do that gives glory to God’ or ‘anything and everything that gives praise to the Lord’. And while these were good and true answers I still wondered how to turn it into ‘giving glory to God in everything’. So the next question I asked was how to make it into a mindset of wanting everything you do to be worship. And we came up with ‘looking to Him for everything throughout your day and talking to him regularly’ as well as ‘putting God above everything else in life no matter where you are at’. Also ‘shifting your heart posture and coming with the want and desire to worship Him always’. So basically because the Lord is sovereign, the Creator of all things, and so much more, all we should want to do throughout the day is praise Him, no matter our situation or what the day holds. So I would encourage you to start to change your mindset and heart posture to a place of worship. It will take discipline and time but the more you focus on God the more you will grow to love Him and see His hand in everything.
Finally, I have a little testimony from one of the Revival Nights a while ago which helped me start to change my worldview. So basically I was just worshiping and one of the songs they were singing said “Open they eyes of my heart Lord, I want to see you”. So I started praying that the Lord would open my eyes to see Him, His character, and the way He sees other people. Then I sat down and was just praying for awhile until I looked up to start singing again but then just became in awe. I didn’t know what was happening but started to realize that God was answering my prayer and gently opening my eyes to see others the way He does. I started to look around at pretty much everyone in the room and every time I laid eyes on someone new I would get this sense of kind and gentle love and admiration for them because they are a Child of God. And while siting there wide eyed and in awe, I started crying happy tears because of just how good God is. So I started praising and thanking Him for the way He loves us and for also opening my eyes to see His precious kids. This also led me to repentance over how I have judged, viewed, or treated those He created and loves so much. I am so thankful for that night because it led me into more understanding of the Fathers heart as well as changed the way I continually see and treat others.
Thank you Lord for who you are, who you have created us to be, and for the way you love us so well. May we never lose sight of how you are working and may we desire to worship you alone, all the time. Thank you also for being gracious to us in the learning process and for taking the time to just allow us to learn and grow. You are so kind and we don’t deserve what you have given us.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Amen!
