I love to worship. It brings me so much joy, that I can barely contain myself. How blessed are we, that we get to worship our king and savior in our own way. I enjoy reading Psalms out loud to praise Him. I love to read scripture, breathed to us by our God each day. But my favorite is praising Him though song. My whole being responds to the music and to the words that often come from God himself.
But it wasn’t always like that. There was a day that I believed that I was not worthy of praising God. I believed in Him, loved Him and even prayed for others but did not feel I could ever recover from the shame of mistakes that I believed were all mine. The spring of 2000 found me separated and headed for divorce and my oldest son facing enormous consequences for mistakes he made. Both of these ideas were so foreign to my ideology, and yet here we were. I was beyond stunned at this turn of events. How in the world did we get here?
This is also started a season of feeling so completely unworthy that I couldn’t even fathom grace. I continued to pray – but not for myself, I didn’t do much bible reading and I certainly didn’t attend church. People like me didn’t deserve to worship and praise a holy God. This point was confirmed when I saw a couple that were leaders in the church I attended and they walked away from me. When I saw them I smiled and headed their way hoping for a hug and some words of encouragement, they hurried off in another direction. Yep, I was unworthy of the God I had known since I could talk.
I would like to say that this season was short and that things easily got back on track but that isn’t exactly how it happened. For years I just ignored it. I didn’t go to church, although I never quit believing in God. I prayed for my children, my friends and the occasional disaster. I didn’t attend church often, I didn’t take communion and I spent little to no time reading my bible. But, God didn’t give up on me. He put people in my path that encouraged me, one particular friend reminded me that praise and worship are for God not me. That was just what I needed reminded of. Worship really isn't about me, rather it is all about Him. When I figured that out I found my way back to worship. And every day I consider it a great privilege to praise my great God and to feel His love and grace. I can be a stubborn thing, and my God knows that; it turns out He can be pretty stubborn Himself.
I relate so much with David when he brought the ark of the Lord to Jerusalem. He was so overcome with praise that he “danced with all his might.” (2nd Samuel 6:14) And that is how I always want to be when I praise Him. Because praising Him is not about me and my worthiness; it’s all about God and His worthiness. And he is worthy to be praised with everything in me, always!
So when you see me worshiping our God with enthusiasm, know it’s because today, I am completely free to do so. He should be praised, every single day. There is so much joy in praising Him on earth, can you imagine what it will be like in His presence?!