I have been reading Leading on Empty by Wayne Cordiero recently and it made me think about my own life and question how well I do at recharging my batteries frequently. Then I had this question: What about worshipping on empty?
How many times do you get up and not feel like giving God your best? For some people, worship is recharging in itself. I love to worship, but have you ever been in a service where you say, "you know, the worship didn't so anything for me today."
There are times where it is important to press through in those circumstances and worship anyway. That is when I find my best breakthroughs happen...when the musicians are off and we are singing styles I just don't like. God uses those opportunities to test whether the worship is truly about him or just an enjoyment of the worship team.

If we continue to avoid connection in the worship setting, your relationship is bound to become dry. If you find yourself in a dry time, find some worship music that you do like (CDs, mp3, or just sing yourself) and let it recharge your battery. It is much easier to serve God full than constantly searching for better.
I often remind myself before I start singing that "this is not about me." I tell God that I want Him to be pleased with my song to Him and that if He is, nothing else matters (not even if I hit the right notes or offend my neighbor). If I don't know a song, sometimes I like it even better because then I'm concentrating on the new words and trying to understand how I can relate them to my worship of God. If I've sung a song a thousand times, I do my best to concentrate not only on the meaning of the words so that they are not mindless repetition, but I also try my best to add in my own variations as I praise Him.
ReplyDeleteI can feel a difference in my Spirit when I worship this way as opposed to when I have a bad attitude, don't even concentrate on what I'm singing, or choose to dislike the songs that are being played.
It's more important to me to have my heart in the right place than it is to like a song, or even to sing it well.