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Worship
By Josh Snodgrass
I grew up in a small country church in
rural Wisconsin. My dad was the pastor and he
often led the singing at the little church. From
the time I was about 8 years old I often played guitar in our church as part of different
music nights and worship services. In my adult
life I have been on worship teams and many different stages at different types of
Christian events. So with my background in
Christian music, it is very humbling to say that I feel like I really just started to
learn to worship God through music about 2 years ago.
The interesting thing is that it wasn’t while doing any music that I learned
to worship. It was in my daily quiet times and
in praying through the day. Before I had sung
to a God I knew about but somehow still seemed distant.
I hadn’t pursued Him with a deep passion, and so I hadn’t found Him in a
personal way. It is one thing to believe in
God and to worship Him in truth, it is another to know Him personally and to worship Him
in spirit. When we mature in our relationship
with Christ, our ability to worship Him also increases.
If our relationship with Him is shallow, our worship will be as well.
On a Sunday recently at our church when I
was getting ready to go up on the stage to play guitar in the worship team, I was so
nervous it was making me sick. I had a couple
of difficult intros to play and it would be obvious to everyone if I screwed them up. That’s when God reminded me that He has given
me the talents I need to serve Him, and not necessarily the talents I need to impress
people. He reminded me that worship is
spiritual and that I should focus on Him and everything else would be ok. If I messed up and my pride was taken down a notch
or two, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. If
I played well, my heart was focused on His glory and not mine. Interestingly enough, it all went great, which is
often the case when the focus is right.
Man looks at the outward condition but God
looks at the heart. When we are singing in
church or even leading worship, the tendency is to be more concerned with the quality of
our musical performance. Most of us judge the
worship at our church by the quality of the worship team’s musical talent and
organization. God doesn’t listen to our
voices or instruments, He listens to the condition of our hearts. Worshiping is a spiritual thing. So to lead worship, we need to be spiritually
focused.
One thing that I find fascinating in the
Bible is that many times it talks about singing a new song to the Lord. (Psalm 33:3, Psalm 40:3, Psalm 96:1, ect.) As a songwriter I love this fact because otherwise,
why not just sing the classic, time tested songs and forget new music all together? I think God tells us this for several reasons. First, we need to sing about the new things He is
doing in our lives. God was not just mighty
and working in the past but He is working now and if we open our lives up to Him
we’ll have new stuff to sing about. Also,
there is something special about writing or discovering a new song that captures what
you’ve been experiencing with God in your daily walk with Him. It is our hope that through the working of the Holy
Spirit, our songs can be this for others. |
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