For the past few years, I have been leading musical worship at my church. Nearly every Sunday, I pull my guitar out of the case and play worship songs in an attempt to praise God with sincerity and passion. However, despite my best intentions, there are times in which I, a worship leader, find myself "going through the motions."
I can become so focused on playing the right notes and singing the right melodies that my heart can be so unengaged that I cannot call it worship, its devolved to just playing music. This is one of the sad realities of life that has challenged my conceptions of what worship is and has pushed me to seek after God with more eagerness and energy.
What I've discovered is that worship and getting into that place of worship is a whole-person endeavor. When I think that worship can be "turned on" like a switch, I will fail. Only when humility and reverence consume every thought, word, and action has true worship occurred.
This may challenges concepts of worship that are fragmented and inaccurate, namely, the idea that we can simply walk into a sanctuary, sing the words on the screen or in the hymnal, and it will be sufficient to constitute actual worship. Instead, worship, true worship, requires preparation and intentionality. Only when we lay it all on the line with sincerity and humility can worship occur.
Jesus, in quoting the words of Moses, says it best:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind ( Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37)."
Worship demands all aspects of a person and nothing less. Let us the take this posture among us so that we do not find ourselves going through the motions, but that the Spirit of God flows through us!
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