WHEN THE MUSIC FADES (DANCING WITHOUT MUSIC PT 2)

In a church in England, the pastor banned 'praise and worship' in the church for a period of time. Actually its most appropriate to say that he banned all singing in the church because his reason for doing that was to let his members learn that there are other ways of worshiping God apart from singing. In fact, like I said in my previous article, people often get lost in the melody of the song and lose the main focus of worship which is God. 

True worship is not limited to singing a slow worship song, in fact its so bad now that 'worship' is a type of song - the slow song that usually comes before praises - the fast song. 

Basically, we worship God when we do what we were created to do. For example, if God created you to be a fast runner, you worship God whenever you use the ability of running fast. We all are gifted with one ability or the other, it could be aesthetic, athletic or even in the way to organise things or people, the way we talk and relate to people et cetera. The point is we worship God when we use those abilities, provided it is not in a sinful way. 

God has also created us to love Him, so we worship God when we love Him. But since no man has seen God, the only way we can express our love for God is by loving or helping others. In fact the best way to use our ability to worship God is to use it in a way that it helps others. 

God has also created us to have fellowship with Him just like it was in Eden. Fellowship is not limited to church activities, fellowship means you should be in constant communication with God and not just when you want to kill one uncle somewhere or when you want a blessing. In fact can you remember ever talking to God without asking for a thing? Even in our daily activities we could say 'thank you Lord', 'I trust in you,' 'you are wonderful'. If we do this regularly we would find out that we are in constant communication with God, praying without ceasing. 

God also wants us to trust Him totally. For example, Abraham attempting to sacrifice the fulfilment of God's promise for his life because He recognised God as His source of blessing and not Isaac who was is long awaited son. Trusting God means total obedience to His word. 

Generally, worshiping God is doing that thing that gives Him pleasure. Matt Redman is a member of the church I earlier mentioned in this write-up, and after the ban was lifted, he wrote a song 'The Heart of Worship' where he said; 

I'll bring you more than a song, 

Cos a song in itself is not what you have required, 

You search much deeper within than the way things appear, 

You're looking into my Heart.' 

Now is the hour to worship God in spirit and in truth, through doing things that would give Him pleasure, things that would make Him smile.

Dancing Without Music

It was a sunday morning, in the house of God, but on this day, the choir was at their worst, singing dull songs and sometimes even going off beat and off key. But when I looked to my left, lo and behold I saw Elvis dancing with all his strength. After the service, I walked up to my friend to told him how to choir really messed up, he also gave his observation of how the choir messed up, then I asked him, how come you were dancing so vigorously even with the knowledge that they were singing nonsense, he looked with surprise not knowing how to answer the question, all he said was, I just keep dancing regardless of whether I'm enjoying the music or not. 

I was amazed at his reply, my friend Elvis did not need to enjoy the music before deciding to dance or not. When it comes to praises and worship, most of the time we focus on the music instead of God. So most of the time when we think we really praised and worshiped God, the truth is our hearts did not go beyond the music. What of when the music goes off, where does your heart go. 

Looking at the bigger picture, we tend to serve and praise God and give testimonies, when things are going the way we want, but when things don't go the way we want we start asking God questions, like why did he allow it happen? Where is He? Does He really exist? 

God has a reason for every situation, but even despite that, it is our duty to worship God, it is what we were created to do, whether or not things are going the way we want. Truth is, it is in those times where it feels like God is far away that the real us is revealed and not when its all rosy. Even Jesus was there, He had to cry out '...why has Thou forsaken me?' But He still carried with the plan God had put in place. 

The real you is revealed when the music goes off. The question is, 'who is the real you?'