How do I worship when I don’t feel worshipful?
We are continuing our series in the book of Job. And this week we looked at responding to suffering with worship. And the question this week is how do I worship when I don’t feel very worshipful? Or how do I worship when I don’t feel like singing? And this week Dan shared that you can go to God with all of your emotions, no matter how raw they are.
In fact, Job starts his worship by tearing his robe so you don’t have to come before God prim and proper and polished. God wants your heart. God wants you to go to Him in the highs and in the lows. And in these times of suffering, when we don’t feel like worshipping, god still wants to be worshipped. So how do we do that?
What’s a more practical way? What does that look like when I come to church and my heart just isn’t quite in it? And for that I want to take a look at Psalm 13. And David writes in Psalm 13 how long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me O Lord my God, light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him, lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.
So I think there’s three things to keep in mind when we’re in a time of suffering or even a time of apathy, when we’re just not feeling that passion to worship, we’re not feeling super close with God. And the first thing is, remember the promise in those times where you’re feeling like your enemies are overwhelming you, which could be literal, like what David was talking about, or spiritual metaphoric enemies overwhelming you. Remember those times when you were able to worship and when you did feel super close to God, and remember that lean on those times. The other thing we can do is remember the promise. See, God has promised to restore and redeem each and every one of us who believe in His Son and we will have everlasting life in heaven with Him.
So even though right this moment I don’t feel great, I don’t feel super close to God, I can sing because I know of that heavenly promise. And then the last thing is simply just do it. Sometimes that seems harder than others, and sometimes that’s pretty hard. But David demonstrates this in Psalm 13 when he’s saying how long O Lord? David obviously feels like he has been forgotten and been left out and he is suffering.
But he ends this psalm with but I have trusted in your steadfast love my heart shall rejoice in your salvation I will sing to the Lord. So sometimes we have to just do it. On Sunday, we started service with a song that began I’m going to sing till my heart starts changing. I’m going to worship till I mean every word. That means that sometimes I’m singing those words and my heart doesn’t feel it and I don’t quite mean it, but I’m going to keep doing so because the next line of the song says because the way I feel and the fear I’m facing doesn’t change who you are and what you’ve done.
God has already sent his son jesus came to the earth to redeem us and restore us before we were even born. So we lean on that promise and we remember that gift. And hopefully we continue to worship and sing until our heart starts changing and until our worship means every word that we sing. Well, thanks and keep sending in those questions. We love having these conversations with you and I hope to see you on Sunday.