A Heart of Worship (Guest Post by Adeline Charlotte)

Today I am so excited to be sharing an article by my good friend Adeline Charlotte! Adeline is a talented writer currently serving on the mission field, and her faith inspires me every day. She also loves leading worship at her church, and her singing voice is absolutely beautiful, so she is perfect for writing on this topic. Please welcome Adeline to my blog, and I hope you enjoy her work!

“A Heart of Worship” by Adeline Charlotte

“Isn’t it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?” ~ Francis Chan

I love this quote because it is filled with a beautiful truth: We worship a God who can never be overpraised. Isn’t that amazing? 

We have the privilege to worship the Creator of the Universe. We are blessed to be able to be in relationship with a personal God but also to one day join the angels in worship of a holy and powerful God. 

Worship is such an important part of the Christian walk. It’s something that I am passionate about, as I’ve grown up in the world of worship music and have always had a love for song and praise. 

When talking about worship, something that I believe is often overlooked, ignored, or maybe even forgotten about is the physical response that comes with it. 

I heard a pastor say recently that he firmly believes someone cannot have a heart of worship without a physical response. That’s a big assertion, but I agree with him.

When you love someone, there is a physical response, and it’s the same with God. When you love someone, that physical piece is natural, and it should be the same way with God. I love this quote from Anthony Esolen’s Out of the Ashes: “I see a church full of sinners who know they are sinners, so although the service is full of ceremony, the people do not stand on it, they take their worship seriously…They pray to God who made them and redeemed them. They enjoy the virtue that brings men nearest to the freedom of God—gratitude. They know that the sweetest things in life are given and received, not earned and paid for. That is why they sing: for singing is what the lover does [emphasis added].”

I know a lot of people–and maybe this is you too–who say they’re uncomfortable to lift their hands in church or sing their heart out or have any kind of external response. 

But I ask, is worship supposed to be comfortable? 

I don’t think it is. It can be. But that’s a choice we have to make. 

When we’re singing in church, we are worshiping our Savior. We are worshiping our Creator. We are worshiping the most powerful Being in the world and someone who loves us so much that He died for us. Have you let that sink in? Have you truly thought about who it is that you are worshiping?

Because when I start thinking about that, there is absolutely no way that I can keep my hands to my side and my voice down. I’m singing to my Savior. You better believe I’m going to put my whole body into that. 

But why is it so important? Why is it non-negotiable and not just a personal preference? When I dig into Scripture, I often find my answers, so let’s dive in. 

Worship in the Bible

There are numerous passages in Scripture, particularly in the Psalms, where the action of worship is clear. 

Psalm 47:1 tells us to clap our hands, Psalm 95:6 tells us to bow down and kneel, Psalm 63:4 tells us to raise our hands in worship, Psalm 150 tells us to worship with music and dancing, Psalm 33 tells us to sing and shout.

What I find so beautiful is that there are seven Hebrew words for worship in the Bible and every single one involves an action.

1. Barak: To kneel in reverence and submission.
2. Tehillah: To sing a spontaneous, unrehearsed song of the Lord, from your spirit.
3. Towdah: To lift your hands in thanksgiving.
4. Yadah: To throw your hands up and forward while making a confession about God.
5. Zamar: To worship the Lord while playing an instrument.
6. Shabach: A loud, joyous shout of testimony.
7. Halal: To jump, dance, to be loud and clamorous¹

Throughout the Bible, we can see countless commands to worship and to worship with all of ourselves. 

I was sitting in Bible study last summer, and we were reading the Psalms. A dear friend of mine, who was a very new believer at the time, was expressing how excited she would get when reading the Psalms and how she just wanted to sing and dance. When we told her that the Psalms really were originally songs, she was amazed and asked, “Do you think David ever danced?”

I couldn’t help but smile, because yes, he certainly did. David sang, leapt, and danced before the Lord (2 Samuel 6:14-15). I don’t know about you, but I desire to have confidence like David when I worship. I want to worship God with all that is in me. 

I want to sing. I want to leap. I want to dance. 

It’s not about us, it’s all about Him

I know that lifting your hands at church when no one else is or singing loud may be uncomfortable at first, especially if you don’t think you sound good

But guess what? 

It’s not about us. It’s about God.  

I say this with love, but your discomfort doesn’t matter because God is still worthy. It doesn’t matter if it pushes us out of our comfort zone because God is still deserving. 

Worship isn’t for us. It’s for Him. It’s not about what we are feeling. It doesn’t even matter if we feel like worshiping at all. 

We just do it anyway. 

I have had plenty of Sunday mornings where I show up to church and feel like I don’t have it in me that morning. Whether it’s because I received hard news over the week or am struggling with anxious thoughts or even if I’m just exhausted, there are moments in my life where I don’t feel like worshiping. 

But whatever it is, we bring it to the feet of Jesus, and we worship not for ourselves but for Him. 

I have a friend who has some physical disabilities, so he’s in a wheelchair, and he also can’t do much with his hands. But when he worships, it’s the most beautiful thing. If a song ends and everyone starts clapping or even if people start clapping in the middle of the song, he makes a clicking noise with his mouth because he can’t physically clap his hands but still wants to join in the worship of our King. Honestly, it gets me. If I’m standing next to him during worship, it makes me teary. 

If someone who can barely move still gives everything he has in worship, then all of us who have been immensely blessed with the ability to dance, jump, sing, clap, and lift our hands should be able to worship with all of ourselves too. 

Do you like football?

Do you like sports? I know it sounds like a completely irrelevant question, but do you like watching a football or basketball game or whatever sport it is that you enjoy? 

To be honest, I don’t know the first thing about most sports, but I do know a lot of people who love them, and that’s awesome. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

But sometimes I watch people who love sports. Let’s say they’re watching a football game. When their team scores a touchdown, they jump up in the air, they yell, they throw their hands up. 

Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s fine to be excited when your team scores. What makes my heart ache is that I know so many people who don’t give it a second thought to scream and jump up in the air when their team scores, but then they come to church on a Sunday morning and stand there, barely even singing to themselves. 

And that’s where the problem is. 

Obviously, I’m just using sports as an example because it’s something that we’ve all seen, but you can apply this to anything in your life. Think about the things that excite you, the things that cause you to raise your voice or dance for joy. 

Isn’t the Lord infinitely more important than those things?

If your answer to that question is yes, then your physical response to those things should never be more than your physical response in worshiping God. 

Putting it into practice

I was at a worship conference earlier this year and was sitting through a session taught by my dad, and the title of his session was, “What is Worship and Why do we Sing??

We talked about a lot of things surrounding worship, but one of them was the physical response. Somebody said that they came from a very conservative church where no one really had a physical response to worship, so he asked how he could add that physical response in his worship when it didn’t come naturally. 

What my dad said was that you can’t do something in public that you haven’t practiced in your personal life. He told us about how when he was in college, he read a book that challenged him on this topic, so he began practicing physical worship just in his dorm room. 

He would sing out and lift his hands. And he said that yes, it felt a little weird at first. But as he continued to practice, it became ingrained in him, and as time went on, he found himself lifting his hands in church naturally.

I know it sounds a bit silly to say that this is something you have to practice, but it’s just like anything in life. If you’ve never done it before, it will feel different at first. It won’t be natural at the beginning if it’s new to you, but as you continue to be intentional in your worship, it will start to feel more and more natural, and eventually, you won’t even have to think about it. 

A heart of worship

I firmly believe that worship requires a physical response, and while it’s not going to look the same for everyone, it shouldn’t look like standing there completely still for anyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the stage or in the pew. It doesn’t matter if people are watching. It doesn’t matter if there are ten people at church or a thousand people at church. 

What matters is that we are given the incredible opportunity to worship a God who is good and powerful and loving. 

And He deserves worship more than we deserve life itself.

A heart of worship should be in every Christian. 

Is it in you? 

Sources:

1. What are the Seven Hebrew Words for Praise?

About the author

Adeline Charlotte is a young Christian author whose love for writing began at an early age, scribbling down stories by the age of eight. Her passion for the beauty of words has only grown since then as she continues to write about her faith and craft meaningful stories that share the truth that there is light in the darkness.

Adeline lives on a tropical island, serving on the mission field with her parents. When she’s not typing away at her computer, you can find her snorkeling with sea turtles, playing the piano, or spending time with her amazing friends and family.

Currently, you can find Adeline on Instagram @adelinecharlotteauthor and at her newsletter, The Island Girl.