Worship (Part 1)

Worship is weird outside of a gospel-centered context... I remember growing up as a kid in church and trying to wrap my mind around why this all powerful Being NEEDED my worship... why I had to go sing to Him every Sunday... I felt like my worship somehow fulfilled Him... like He was incomplete without it and if He didn't get it somehow He would be angry, like a spoiled kid who doesn't get his toy in the store and throws a tantrum (something I was very familiar with around this time).

As I grew to know the Lord on a personal level, praying and reading His Word, I began to realize that He's not at all like that kid who doesn't get his way, and that He doesn't even need my worship... which led me to a weird place: apathy towards worship. If He doesn't need it, what's the point?

I was still a long way off from understanding the depths of the gospel message, but I knew some of the basics: that He died for my sins and loved me. This sparked something within my heart... a little bit of thanks. "Wow God, that's pretty cool... thanks... um, I guess you had to because you felt guilty for cursing us all along with Adam, Eve and the whole planet, but I do appreciate You for forgiving us and dying under the weight of Your own heavy decree... that's nice. Thanks!" I knew He loved me because I could feel His love for me when I prayed and I would be overwhelmed at times with His Spirit... but I still somehow felt like I was doing Him a favor when I worshipped Him.

Day in and day out as my relationship with God took on new forms... as I experienced life with it's diverse situations and had to go to God for answers, my appreciation for Him grew and my walk deepened. I began to weep as I thought about His love for me. I began to be moved in times of corporate worship, which was easy in the Pentecostal church I grew up in, where worshipful expression was given full-license. Still, the worship I gave Him was shallow and immature. In fact, it began to twist and turn and transform into something else altogether. Somewhere in there worship became all about me.

It's interesting how easily this happened. There were services I attended during that time where I went expecting nothing, but somewhere in the music I would be overwhelmed by my emotions and an overwhelming sense of God's presence... The feeling was so great... the joy so inexplicable that I began seeking the experience of being in His presence. I would "pray hard" and say things I knew He wanted to hear so I could experience that high again... I would jump and run and contort my body... I would "Dance like David danced," not as a result of His powerful presence, but as some perverted form of a "rain-dance" trying my best to make God to move. looking back now I feel like I behaved less like a Christ-follower and more like one of the prophets of Baal, doing anything to get the fire to come down! I was seeking the gifts of His presence, and not the divine Giver himself.

Don't get me wrong, there were positive motivations in there too! I wanted God to move so miracles would happen! I wanted people to get healed! I wanted broken hearts to be mended, and broken relationships to be restored! And most of all I wanted people to be filled with the Spirit! But all these motivations paled in comparison to the high I was chasing. Then, when God seemed not to respond in the way I wanted Him to, I became that kid in the toy store... I half-blamed God and half-blamed all the carnal people who weren't worshipping Him enough... "If we just had more unity!"

One day I found myself in a spiritual desert, starving for 'more of God' and wondering if there was some secret sin in my life that was causing Him to judge me by withholding those moves of His Spirit that I was feening for. Desperate for more experiences, I stepped into the shoes of a mad scientist and began researching worship in order to break down the perfect formula to get God to move... to sustain my fix. In my mad pursuit I read the Psalms... I read the Gospels and Epistles... I read and read and read... and I discovered something. Worship is not what I thought it was...

(Part 2 Coming soon...)