Worship oftentimes connotes large throngs of sincere believers bowing down to a god. It can be ceremonies and tradition—mixed and mashed throughout the millennia in a powerful and memorable manner, so that they remain relevant to contemporary practitioners. It can even be the awe felt by a hormonal teenage boy gawking at a Hollywood starlet. Not that I would know, of course.
As a young teen at a Christian school who was forced to attend a chapel service every Thursday, worship meant being forced to stand and mumble a few hymns—or to just stand and scowl. During my time there, the pastor made us memorize Psalm 100, where verses one through three reads “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. 2Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. 3Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”
At the time, these words meant nothing. It was the Bible after all—it’s a good book, useful with some wisdom and morality, the key to Western literature, but certainly not meaningful in any personal way. But little did I know, the significance of these words—though they lay dormant in my memory, like those files from class last quarter that I never bother to look at again—would later come to mean so much more. I drifted away from Christianity my early college years—desiring to set a path for myself separated from the hypocritical dryness my judgmental self saw in other Christians. Maybe we sometimes need to drift away from our Christianity so we can be drawn into a relationship with Christ. When I concluded that the flaws of human nature—the hypocrisy, the meanness, the cliques, the exclusion of others—do not affect the truth of the Bible and the character of God, I started believing again and became once again confronted with worship. What is it? What does it mean?
The verses once forced upon me as a captive audience at a Christian school by a pastor that I, frankly, didn’t really like, began to come to the forefront. I appreciate that he made me memorize those verses. It articulates something I never experienced and therefore never understood—that worship is a reminder of who God is, and who we are. It’s not a one way communication directed towards an unhearing or even non-existent god. It’s interactive and experiential. To my shock, when I responded in worship, whether singing, whether lifting my hands, or even just standing there in contemplation, God responded back. It doesn’t matter what you do, it matters what’s in your heart. It’s a time when healings occur. Others will hear from God directly, and share what they hear to everyone else present.
Something unique and awesome occurs when we turn our eyes and minds away from the daily grind and towards the heavens. The worries of the day seem a little petty when I worship and remember who God is, and who I am. Cares sound like mere noise as we make melodies to remember God. When the mysteries, the grandiosities, and the expansiveness of the universe—and our God—come together, our worries seem so small in comparison. That’s not to say that worries disappear, but they certainly seem less daunting. I can’t give a specific definition for what worship is. It depends on a lot. But I know it’s worth it to take the first step, to attend the meeting or whatever, to sing the songs and to think about God. Who is he? Does he matter to us? Do we matter to him? I would take the first step and just worship God. Trust me, he’ll hear, and he’ll respond.
