Recently I was asked to write for YWAM Nuremberg’s Blog on the topic of worship. This is what I typed:
All of us associate very different emotions, images, or spiritual practices when it comes to worship. Maybe it’s a very familiar term for you because you have incorporated what you understand worship to be into your life. Perhaps, however, you feel like you’re just testing the waters of new terrain like someone who’s trying on new shoes for the first time. Do they fit, are they comfortable, and can you walk in them?
Personally, I have been involved in full-time missions for almost a decade now. During that time, I have had the privilege to visit many different countries, cultures, and individuals from various religious backgrounds. Worship, I have come to understand, varies greatly from place to place and depends on circumstances as well. And worship, unlike we could easily assume, isn’t just limited to musical expression. Worshipping God through singing, dancing, and instruments is of course a very big part; it is one of the ample ways we can express our adoration, our praise to God. Scripture is full of examples of this.
We know that He is deserving of our worship. As our king, Jesus deserves to receive the worship of His sons and daughters. I can recall many instances where I participated in a worship or prayer time and I poured out my heart singing. Sometimes I could feel overwhelming emotions, feel God’s love, and I knew “I am safe in His presence”. Growing up in a more traditional setting of the protestant-lutheran church, I also know worship times to be singing songs from hymnals accompanied by a majestic organ. Stained glass windows and the priest in his robe added to the sense that I was, indeed, standing on holy ground where God was deserving of worship. I love and appreciate both of these expressions of worship. And during my time in ministry, many individuals have experienced personal breakthroughs and healings during exactly these moments when we focus solely on the One who sits on the throne.
But another experience resides in my heart which I find to be a very personal, even intimate experience of worshipping God.
“In retrospect, I sense God’s delight over that act of worship. It’s strange to think that when I did nothing, God delighted in it.”
In 2017 I was invited to teach in a Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Nigeria. This beautiful and precious African country has suffered from muslim terrorist attacks, corruption, violence, and mismanagement for many years, costing thousands of lives. Up until that point, however, the news reports seemed so far away and didn’t really concern me personally. After I had taken the time to pray and felt God leading me to accept the invitation, things became a bit more real. It wasn’t until I arrived and received first hand reports of the terrors the Nigerian people have to live with, almost on a daily basis, that I became truly aware. Pictures and videos of the most unthinkable doings of men, killing innocent villagers & friends of my friends, were shown to me. I was speechless. As a good Christian, of course I wanted to take time and pray for God to intervene. I was eager to do the right thing.
Alone in my room, I knelt down and found that I was at a loss of words. As much as I wanted to pray, I couldn’t. I was taught that, when we don’t find our own words, we can always pray in tongues - one of the prayer practices we find in Scripture. But I was still speechless, tearing up, and desperate to put into words what I had seen on the small phone screen which burned the horrific images into my brain. Nothing. Kneeling there, alone and in the dark, all I could do is be in God’s presence and offer myself as a prayer and as worship to Him who deserved it - even in the midst of such great darkness and heaviness. I sobbed as I sat, simply being. I didn’t speak and God didn’t speak. But we were both aware of each other's presence. And this very moment, I dare say, has so far become the most intimate, raw, and unfiltered worship I was ever able to offer to God. I believe, in part, this is due to the fact that I had nothing else to give to God except my own empty, speechless, and limited self. In retrospect, I sense God’s delight over that act of worship. It’s strange to think that when I did nothing, God delighted in it.
Through this and through many times of prayer and worship afterwards, I learned that God isn’t looking for a performance when we worship. He isn’t even necessarily looking for beautifully sung lyrics, played instruments, or our adequate expression in prayer - but God seeks honest hearts that truly love Him. He isn’t requiring us to immerse ourselves in emotional experiences, but He longs to meet us face to face when we come before Him as we are. The most beautiful act of worship, after all, might just be us spending time with the One we worship. Because He isn’t just a worshipped King, He is also a Father and Friend.