Worship With A Human Heart

January 30, 2016 by K. J. Bagnall 4 Comments

The church fellowship I attend is small. Worship is usually run by a singer and one – or, if we’re lucky, two – musicians, along with someone in charge of displaying lyrics.

Anyone who happens to have read my first post, and are wondering how things went: well, the last few weeks have been pretty good. Mum will be back home soon, and I feel confident that I won’t worry as much next time. Every step a leap of faith. Faith brings forth growth. Growth carries us closer to hope.

This week, it didn’t quite go smoothly. Sometimes the lyrics were out of order, sometimes the guitar was louder than the singer, sometimes the congregation was off-key or sang at the wrong time. At one point the musician couldn’t find the music sheet for a song, so we ended up singing one song twice!

This is my favourite worship. When we raise up our voices and stumble, when our plans go awry and the guitarist stumbles. And when we continue anyway. Because we must. I love these moments. They make me smile, and I like to think they make God smile too.

Because we aren’t a concert of professionals with a stage and fancy lightning. Because we aren’t here to produce beautiful, on-key music without missing a beat. We are here as humans to worship the one true God.

And how remarkable, how astounding that He loves our worship, stumbles and all. How awesome is it that He loves such imperfect humans.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

We don’t need to be perfect to come before God. In fact, He came to us, arms held wide, while we were unworthy. How can we not praise Him? How could anyone stand to wait until perfection before raising off-tune voices in worship to our God?

Thank you, Lord, that You love it when we worship with a fallible human heart.