Something God has been teaching me is to be loud and unashamed in worship. It has been a painful lesson. I am not a very musically talented person. I could never hear beat, and I have been tone deaf for as long as I can remember. My sister would always tell me “Anna that’s not how you sing that song!” I’m that tone deaf. Therefore, worshipping loudly and boldly does not come naturally, and it has been very hard to follow God in the freedom He paid for me to have.
Two years ago, Jesus asked me to dance with Him in worship. After I eventually relented and began to dance with Him in worship, I began to hear beat. I could finally understand why everyone clapped at the same time to a song. At first, my dancing was wild and undignified. I had to lay down everything and trust in the Holy Spirit. Slowly as He taught me to dance, it became less and less uncomfortable. I thought that dance was the only way God was teaching me to be bold, unashamed, and to not care about what others thought, but I was wrong. I guess I forgot there is a lot more to worship than just dance.
I still don’t really understand the different parts of music, but since no one had commented on me being tone deaf in a long time, I had hoped that I wasn’t anymore. I did not want to hear how wrong I was. The other day I boldly walked with open arms into this truth that I didn’t want to hear. I was sitting and talking with a couple of teammates, and I naively asked the boldest question I could have asked right then. “On a scale of one to ten how tone deaf am I?” I asked out of insecurity, which is not a good place to be in when asking for the honest truth. You know what they say, the truth hurts. On a scale of one to ten I scored an eight. It was like a slap to the face, but I didn’t want to address it. I knew they were just being honest and I value honesty.
The next day, I woke up like an angry cat. I kept pushing the thought of my tone deafness down. It was embarrassing and humiliating. It felt like a judgment sentence. It wasn’t something I had hope of escaping. I knew God was saying it shouldn’t matter whether I can hear tone or not, after all He said to make a joyful noise of praise, it doesn’t have to be a perfectly in tune song. Still, I didn’t really want to sing in worship. I was angry with God. I couldn’t understand why he would give me such a passion for music and worship and absolutely zero talent to back that up. It felt like he gave me opposite of talent.
I eventually sat down with my ukelele, and as I was strumming, I threw a full on tantrum. I was playing my ukulele loudly and singing quietly, and I wasn’t trying to make it sound good. I was strumming as fast and wildly as I could because I was frustrated and felt like I couldn’t play it right anyway. I was searching for my identity. God showed up in the midst of my tantrum and told me, “Anna this is who you are, you are the one who keeps going even when the world says you can’t.” I remembered how I couldn’t dance before, how bad I looked, and how God had taught me so well that people now actually think I look graceful and beautiful in dance.
The next night, we had a small worship session. I sat in the corner and asked God to teach me to sing in tune. I forced myself to sing even though I was still so embarrassed by my voice. I tried desperately to mash voice into the tune. I could hear vague ups and downs in the singing and I tried to follow them. I’m not sure if it had any affect. When worship was over, I realized that I had been so focused on singing in tune that I had forgotten to worship. I had no joy, no love, and no praise in my song, it felt like I had sung lifelessly. It occurred to me that perhaps my deafening toneless singing pleased the father. Yet, I wasn’t ready to accept that. I wanted to sing in tune because I wanted to fit in and sound good to the people around me, but that is not the heart of worship.
Then monday night, my squad leader had us all gather for worship. She had us all get pots and pans and told us she felt that the Lord wanted to teach us to be more free in worship. I think you know what happened next. We all started banging on the pots and pans. I thought at first we were just going to make our own song, but we were actually listening to worship music, which meant there was actually a beat to follow. I was immediately so nervous to mess the beat up. I was comforted a little because at least I can hear beat, but it was still so hard for me to find and follow it. Not to mention, I for some reason chose the biggest loudest bowl out of everyone. If I hit the bowl directly on the top, it sounded as loud as an actual drum. Guess where God told me to hit the bowl? On the very top, in the very loudest spot. He kept saying don’t hold back, don’t worry about the beat! Still, I spent half of our worship hour focusing on getting the right beat, and forgot to actually worship… again. That is until my squad leader stood up in the middle of worship and said that she felt like we were holding back, and she encouraging us again to be free. God told me to not worry about the beat, to bang as loud as I could on my stupid drum bowl. I wrestled with Him. Finally, He won. In anger and fiery passion I plummeted my fists against the bowl. Every bit of me screaming I DON’T CARE WHAT THEY THINK! I ONLY CARE ABOUT YOU. I broke through. I began to worship like I hadn’t in a very very long time. Around me everyone was letting go. No one seemed to care about the beat anymore. For all I know my loud plummeting with my fists could have been in beat, but it didn’t matter anymore. I was truly worshipping and it was wonderful, the Father was overjoyed. I soon got up and began to sway, stomp, and dance. I sung on the top of my lungs. It was out of tune, and I couldn’t have cared less. I was free. We stopped holding back in worship. We did our own thing and poured are hearts out to God. The presence of God in the room became intense. We were loud and unashamed in worship. It was beautiful.
When I hold back in worship, I am not truly worshipping God. When I hold back, I am distracted, I am entertaining my own desires, and I am clinging to what other people think. This is not true worship. True worship is my confession of love to God. As the Jeff B Pool wrote, “…the most basic form of Christian confession emerges prior to formal articles of belief, statements of faith, creeds, dogmas, or confessions of faith: essentially, Christian confession first originates as something like the expressed love between two lovers.” (Pool, pg 378-379). This confession of love should occur between us and God all the time. If I am constantly loving God, then I am also constantly worshiping Him. What kind of love is ashamed, timid, and quiet? Love is unashamed, bold, and loud. This is the kind of love I want to confess to the Father when I worship.
Confession can mean different things. In Christianity, confession is both admitting sin and the sharing of faith. In order to come before God bold and unashamed in worship, I had to admit that I was ashamed and why. I also had to lie down my care for what other people thought of me. I couldn’t truly worship while I maintained my worry for what others thought, and while it was hard and painful to let go of that, it was so freeing when I finally did. My unedited, unreserved worship meant more to God, and said more to others about my love for God, than my people pleasing worship ever could have. Paul writes in Galatians “So Christ has truly set us free.” (Galatians 5:1). God in his love paid for us to be free. So now in grace I am no longer bound to the cares of this world. I no longer have to be ashamed of any imperfection in my life. I can live and worship in complete freedom, and living in the freedom Jesus paid for is an expression of love and gratitude for what He has done.
When I surrender everything to Jesus, I am free. This freedom is not comfortable because it does not conform to what the world looks like. Therefore, walking in complete freedom with Jesus is hard, but it’s also beautiful. Following Jesus does not make everyone happy, it does not always earn the praise of people. I cannot please all the people in the world, but I can please God. In the hymn “Jesus, I my cross have taken,” it says “Let the world despise and leave me, They have left my Savior, too.” I’m learning the hard to live for God and not for people. I’m slowly discovering the joy in following His calling, even when it’s humiliating, uncomfortable, and painful. I want my life to speak for itself as a testament and confession of God’s love and grace.
It says in Galatians, “You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for He is the one who called you to freedom.” (Galatians 5:7-8). I was holding back, ashamed, but God continues to encourage me to live fully in His freedom. So now I’m done holding back in worship, I’m done caring what people think, and I’m done shying away from following God’s calling because it’s uncomfortable. Instead, I’m ready to live unashamed. I’m ready for my life to be a continuous confession of God’s love.
