I have been a Christian for 15 years, but it took me being around the world for 5 months to truly understand what worship is. The process began in Cambodia last month when my teammate Thomas and I taught Biblical principles to the advanced English class. One section we covered was how and why we, as believers, worship God.
- ·The “why” seemed simple: God created us, saves us from Hell, and gives us hope every day of eternity in Heaven as His children.
- The “how” also seemed simple: sing, willingly follow the worship leader, and pray.
Today, while sitting as a guest in a church service completely in Tamil, I found myself truly understanding worship and what it looks like. It doesn’t always look the same, but it is always from a genuine heart. It was a heart check. I always thought that clapping to songs in church was to keep the beat, and to be completely honest, was quite annoyed with the person near me who just couldn’t seem to keep a beat to save his/her life. “Come on…it’s 1..2..3..4 repeat”. Pre-race I judged peoples worship by how it sounded to me….WRONG!!
- ·The “How” – The Bible talks about worship with singing hymns and songs. It emphasizes musical instruments, shouts of praise, and lifting voices. The Word describes clapping and dancing as worship. I guess I “knew it” (except dancing…Baptists aren’t known for that 😉 ), but now there are versus, chapters, and explanations behind all the joyousness!
I learned a lot today watching a village man on his knees, eyes closed, singing off key to a foreign song, clapping so off beat I didn’t know how it was even possible, but knowing that God loves and appreciates His worship just as much as Michael W. Smith’s.
- ·The “Why”- We can sing, shout, clap, dance, and rejoice and it’s all to glorify our Lord and Savior. He asks it of us! What a necessary opportunity we have!
God could have chose to smack me in the face for that selfishness, but He didn’t. He allowed me to understand through experience that our worship is for Him and Him alone. I’m not sure why today was the day for me to fully understand the “How” and “Why” we worship, but I thought I’d share!
I love you all, I love India, and I am blessed more than ever to be serving our God.
P.S. If you would like, I would love for you to pray for my crazy foot blisters to heal sooner rather than later since travel days are coming soon! They aren’t deadly or going to make my feet fall off, they are just painful!! Lol
