Worship Response

Lately my thoughts and heart have been moving back to the realm of worship, which, I must confess I have neglected for quite awhile. Not that it was any fault of mine, rather I have never understood worship and what it truly is all that time and it simply lost its appeal to me. So it is safe to say that I haven't worshiped God for years. I think it is even safe to say that I have never truly worshiped God, that is, until recently.

When most Christians think of worship, they think of a sing-along that takes place in church meetings. Some of the more spiritually literate will even say that worship is any action we do to serve God. Yet, I hold that both miss the point of worship entirely.

Of course when pondering these topics I am always lead to go back into the Bible and learn of the men who worshiped God.

I remember the story of Pentecost in which the Holy Spirit fell upon men and they spoke in tongues, preached, performed miracles, etc. One thing I have been paying attention to is what preceded the event of worship? Looking at this case, I see a group of huddled, scared men, hiding from a world that sought their blood. Their master and savior had ascended to heaven and there they sat, waiting in the upper room. They participated in their yearly feast for that specific day, but nothing else was done.

They didn't know to do anything to evoke the presence of God. They weren't "praying down the fire" they weren't singing choruses into endless repetition into emotional frenzy and ecstasy, no, they were simply having their Pentecost dinner.

The Message Bible says that the Holy Spirit showed up without warning. That is, there was no precursor, there was no reason to expect the Holy Spirit to show up. It just came.

All through the Bible, I read account after account of the great men and heroes of the Bible and how they worshiped. These men from Abraham to Moses, to the prophets all had one thing in common. They were all minding their own business, just living out their lives. Some were even shady characters and lived lives prone to sin and error when God found them. But each one had a very unique, encounter with God that almost forced a response of worship from them.

They fell to their knees or on their faces and truly worshiped God. They didn't do so because that was their obligation, or their ritual, or because they were trying to get God to do something. Rather, they did so because they had a very real, undeniable, life-changing, earth shattering encounter with the almighty. Many were struck with a deep terror. Some appeared to lose their minds as they did very bizarre things symbolically because God told them to.

When I read the Psalms or other segments on worship in the old testament, there are entire portions written dedicated to reminding the people what God did for them. Remembering God's actions or experiencing his current ones were the actual call to worship. The worship then was a response to what was said of God or what God Himself did. In early Old Testament liturgy, the people were reminded at the beginning of the service what God did for them. How much more so can we be provoked to true worship now that God is constantly dwelling in us via His Holy Spirit and is continually moving and speaking?

So then what is true worship? True worship occurs when the worshiper's life is so deeply affected and so deeply moved by God's love, His power, and His magnitude that their only natural, rightful response is an intense expression of admiration of God Himself. True worshipers know that worship can't be lead by men. True worshipers know that worship can't be formatted or rehearsed. True worshipers know that worship is a natural, one of a kind, authentic, sincere reaction to God invading our lives and experiencing the intense magnitude of His love and power. They accept no imitations or fabrications. It is too unique to mass produce or clone.

I hold that the bulk of true worship is spent waiting. I am not saying to go hide in your prayer closet for days on end (although time in solitude has helped me tremendously). But by waiting I mean simply living your lives, listening to your heart, what it needs and what it speaks to you and doing so accordingly. Then, when we least expect it God moves. He acts. He provides certain situations and circumstances in which He invites us to experience Him in such a way where genuine worship takes place.

As a mystic, I am learning what it is to wait in silence with expectancy. I am like a cat waiting for a mouse to come out of its hole to pounce. But truth be told, I am the mouse and God, in His time and His way pounces on ME! I find in true worship I am helpless to do anything in the hand of God and I simply wait for Him to do whatever it is that He does.

The average Christian isn't taught to wait. In fact, we live in a society that demands instant results. Many churches try to create instant results with their formatted music session that they call worship. And then as I have pointed out before, they call the feelings they get from it, God. Most Christians don't stop to think that the men in the Bible worshiped as a response to something very real and significant and sometimes tangible from God. There was no mistaking true, genuine worship in that time.

I hold that music in church meetings should be played not to worship God, rather to prepare the listener or singers to wait expectantly on what God is about to do. In early churches throughout the centuries church music was a call to worship, that is, it was preparation. If anything it was to bring a person into a state of meditation and contemplation while they waited for God's Spirit to minister to them. After God moved, they then had a real worship response.

If we are to take this approach to worship, then I hold that worship is what takes place after the church meeting, provided we do indeed have a divine revelation of God during that time. I think many Christians feel slighted if they don't have some sort of experience of God or stirring of the Holy Spirit during the two hours they spend in a church meeting. They will then walk away feeling discouraged and by later that day or Monday they will forget all about it, only to repeat it the next week.

God is not limited to what takes place in that two hour time period. He doesn't have to perform and reveal just because we meet together. Do you know of such church meetings where the pastor would say, "Wow, the Holy Spirit showed up in THAT worship service!"? And we are left frustrated wondering why we didn't feel or experience the Holy Spirit and we walk away discouraged, but always with an invitation from the pastor to come back so once again we have another "chance".

Or a pastor would say "Wow, that was a great time of worship!" And one would be thinking that they had no reason to worship, but they faked it because that is what the rest of the church was doing. All the while we call something that isn't worship AS worship and we call something that isn't God AS God. This, dear reader is one of the most subtle forms of idolatry I have seen in our modern times.

Truth be told, I find the most intense encounters that I have with God are during my week when I least suspect it. He sounds an invitation that catches my heart off guard to come to Him and allow Him to give me a revelation of Him and my worship is the natural response to that. He is the initiator of worship, not me. He calls me and tells me when to worship Him. I don't set it up. I simply follow that call of my heart and His heart as I would be a fool not to.