Reflections on Week Two: Worship

This week has been somewhat of a struggle for me. We had teaching from our staff on worship, and I struggled with feeling pressure to fit into what I perceive to be the "YWAM" mold. In many ways, I have had a difficult time adjusting--to especially expressive worship, to an environment that often calls for immediate responses to teaching, to new people and a new country, to being seen and known all the time, to the expectation that I will be open and honest about everything in my life with these new people. I have struggled at times to fit our teaching in with who God has created me to be, and at times I have been tempted to respond to perceived pressure with a rebellious heart. But even though things have been difficult at times, it has been good to go through this process. And more importantly, it has been good to go through this process with other people. There isn't a whole lot of room to hide in a school with 6 students and 8 staff! And placing my struggles out in the open has helped me to resist attitudes of rebellion, of criticism, of self-pity and of arrogance.

So what did I learn this week? Worship is not about fitting a mold, whether that mold is dancing around the room waving flags, or standing in the pews with hands by your side. Worship is not about doing what others expect or find acceptable. Worship is for GOD and God ONLY. Worship is me giving God the glory and honor due to Him--period. I choose to worship because God is WORTHY--worthy of ALL my worship, ALL the time, no matter what I feel, no matter what others think. The focus is on HIM, not on myself, not on the people around me, and not on what the people around me think of me. The moment my focus shifts from God to anything else is the moment I have ceased to worship Him.

Psalm 95: 1-7
O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord,
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving,
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God
And a great King above all gods,
In whose hand are the depths of the earth,
The peaks of the mountains are His also.
The sea is His, for it was He who made it,
And His hands formed the dry land.
Come, let us worship and bow down,
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.