It’s Sunday morning again and many of us will be heading off to some sort of worship gathering. Currently, God has me carrying responsibilities as our local congregation’s worship leader (among many other things). As a worship leader I am often thinking on and wondering about the corporate worship environment and experience.
A while back I was reading a few different passages in the Bible and a phrase came to me. “Look for God”. This phrase, or invitation, has become part of my Sunday morning vocabulary and I’ve used it many times to help us all understand one of the facets of worship. I explore it a bit here. Lately, however, I’ve been thinking of a new preposition.
I thought about it a lot and it seems like my worship times with God (I mean those times of singing and just standing before God in adoration and awe) are often more like a phone conversation or writing a letter. How much do we realize God’s presence among us when we’re worshipping? I mean a real conscience, relational sense – not just the cognitive sense. How much do we just send off our thoughts and words into the air with the trust or hope that it reaches the invisible God somewhere somehow? Or that we send it off like an email and know that some distant God will receive it. Or we express our hearts to God not really expecting a reply.
Let me suggest a new phrase. “Look AT God”. This morning we will try an experiemnt. Before we begin our time of singing, I will ask the congregation to try this experiment. To close their eyes and in the best way they can figure out, to look AT God. Then once we’re all looking at Him, to tell Him we are there to meet with Him, and to tell Him it’d be awesome if He would reveal Himself to us.
I realize this will have different results for different people. For anyone who doesn’t really know God, this will be meaningless. I suspect there may be people more religiously oriented who’ve never began to imagine God is really there. There may be some who know God but become painfully aware of certain sin barriers that separate them from seeing God. Either way, I hope this helps shape our understanding of our relationship with God – that it is a real relationship.
Have you ever tried to close your eyes and look at God before talking to Him?