THE HEART OF WORSHIP

Sarah Wawrzaszek

A few months ago, I was having a conversation with a couple of good friends about worship. I confessed to them that I struggle at times with judgmental and critical thoughts about certain worship leaders and music selections at Mass. These thoughts would often cause me to not participate or to participate with a hardened heart. One friend spoke up in response and said, “Sarah, worship is an act of obedience. It’s about how God is asking us to worship Him and then doing that.” As soon as she said those words, I felt a deep need to repent. How many times had I been disobedient in my worship?

It’s so easy to get caught in the trap that worship is about how we feel, that we can only worship well if we like the worship leader and the song selection. But by focusing on these things, we’re really worshiping ourselves and our preferences, not God. 

Since that conversation with my friends, every time I worship the Lord, whether in personal prayer, at Mass, or during praise and worship, I make a point to ask Him how He wants me to worship Him. Sometimes that means participating when I don’t love the worship leader’s style. Sometimes that means standing and raising my hands when it feels uncomfortable. Sometimes that means planning a song for Mass at my job that I don’t particularly love but Jesus does. 

These days our world is more self-aware than ever. We know so much about our personality, preferences, and love languages, but do we take time to know these things about the Lord? Let’s make a commitment to learn these things about God and to ask Him how he desires to be loved in our worship of Him.