"I'll bring You more than a song, for a song in itself is not what You have required."-Heart of Worship, Matt Redman
I'm sure many of you have heard the song quoted above, and likely have even sung it at some point during worship. I've been singing it at church and youth group since at least middle school, if not longer.
But I never truly stopped to think about it. At least, not until last month…
It all started with a simple comment about how worship is between you and God, so even if you don't sound good or look good, it doesn't matter. And these were things I already knew, things I'd known for years! But they hit me hard.
In a frenzy, I began to question the very meaning of what worship is.
Worship is more than singing a song and playing some instruments. It has to be! Otherwise, we'd be just like everyone else, all of the non-believers! But I struggle to believe that its more than that, because its all I've ever known it to be. Its all I've ever seen. Even my most emotional, heartfelt moments have been nothing more than striving. Have I ever really worshipped You?
But God, being so good, answered me right back. He told me He wanted my heart, and that I was a slave to the things of this world. He told me I held back because of the bondage I was in, but that He wanted to free me.
You worship Me with the belief that you can't sing, that you sound bad, that your voice isn't intoxicating to Me. Why do you believe the lies of the strangers over the words of your Creator? When you sing, you truly sing your heart out for me, caring not what others think, you are intoxicating to Me! I want you! I want your worship! I want your heart!
Wow. That hit me like a ton of bricks. The God who created the earth, who hung the sun and the moon, wants me? That took a while to sink in. Like, its still sinking in even now. But after all that God told me, I decided to talk it out with my team leader Georgia and my squad leader Rachel.
Each of them let me talk and share with them what I was struggling with and then both just dumped truth out on me. They both also encouraged me so much in just being open to whatever God had for me in this journey of figuring out what true worship was.
One of the biggest struggles for me, as a music lover, was seeing worship songs as more than just instruments and lyrics. I always find myself getting so caught up in how great this guitar solo was, or how great that drum fill sounded. I get distracted.
So all of the sudden, I found myself on a music fast.
Okay, so it wasn't a full music fast. But it was a worship music fast. I really felt that for me to truly discover what worship is, I needed to pull myself out of the familiar.
This was hard.
The very night I decided to give up worship music, my team decided to have a worship night in the park behind where we were staying. I hadn't even told any of them that I was fasting from worship music. So I awkwardly excused myself to a different part of the park and sat down with my Bible.
I prayed.
I read the Word.
I listened to some instrumental music.
I prayed some more.
But there wasn't this massive revelation in my heart. Nothing clicked, nothing suddenly made sense to me. Of course not.
As I continued to pray about it, the Lord really began to speak to me about the passage in John 12, where Mary cleaned Jesus' feet with the costly perfume. One of the verses says that the whole house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. God spoke to me about how my life should be like that house, constantly exuding the fragrace of worship.
My definition of worship started to shift. See, Mary's form of worship was giving her costliest possesion to Christ. If that is what worship is, then there is no way that singing a little song could really be worship, could it?!
I began to evaluate my life, my passions. What were the most valuale things to me? What could I give to God in worship?
A few nights later, I found myself helping lead worship for my whole squad. Pretty ironic for somebody who was fasting from worship music! God told me to speak to the squad about what He was teaching me about worship, which I also thought was pretty ironic, because I still really didn't even understand it all.
As we entered into Kenya, I got distracted. I stopped pressing into the 'worship' issue, and just let it rest on the back burner. I didn't think about it too much. But every couple of days, I found myself leading worship for one ministry or another. And every time, I thought about it again. But as soon as the song ended, I let it slip off of my mind. I probably even ignored it.
But then, suddenly, God spoke it straight into my heart. I wasn't even praying about it or looking for the answer. He just spoke it to me with so much certainty that the issue was settled in my heart.
Katie, you worship Me with your love. That is what you, and only you, can give Me. Sometimes, your love is expressed through song, sometimes through tears, sometimes service, sometimes sacrifice. But the heart of your worship is not those things; they are just expressions of it. The heart of it, the core and the important part, is your love for Me. Your love is your worship, and thats what I want is your love. You know that your worship is intoxicating to Me, and thats because its your love. Worship Me with your love.
And just like that, it all made sense. Songs were never enough because I was just singing. You can passionately sing a song without any love. Thats what I'd been doing for years.
But now I know, and now I can begin to worship like I was created and destined to. My worship music fast is over (hallelujah) and I am discovering what it means to add my love to the words, to really worship.
Its all part of the journey, its all a process. Thats what I love about the World Race, is that its more than just a mission trip. Its a journey of growing your faith and listening to the voice of God. Because He answers.
"When its all been said, and when its all been done, when the race is run, well it all comes down to love."-Let Me Love You More, Misty Edwards
