Dear Twenty Something, Katie Franklin
Dear Twenty Something,
I want you to pause for a moment and ask yourself what “Worship” means to you. As a girl who was raised in the church with my dad as our worship leader, it might surprise you to learn that this was something that I struggled withy for many years and still struggle with somedays. “What is Worship? and what does it mean to truly worship my heavenly father?”
Let’s start with a little background on the twenty-something Jesus lover writing this letter. The church I grew up in was more on the conservative side when it came to worship through music, basically meaning it was mostly older songs and hymns and rarely was there any dancing or hand raising or spontaneous moments of praise. I often found myself feeling distracted, disconnected or simply not wanting to participate… singing the words, but not fully believing their message or quite frankly not paying attention to what they were saying. I never wanted to raise my hands or sing out or do anything that might look “silly” or “out of character” for the put together woman I wanted so badly to be viewed as.
Here’s the thing, your heavenly father already sees through that mask. There is no hiding from his love. Worship is not about what we do for Christ, rather what Christ has done for us. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world, that he gave his ONLY Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have EVERLASTING LIFE!” now THAT is something to sing about! This is the reason we worship, to give back to the Creator of the universe who loved YOU so much that he died for you, all he asks is that we return to him praise. Worship is beautiful and pleasing to God. You are already seen and loved by the one who made you in his perfect image, there is no room for shame or fear in his presence, and you know what, even when we don’t feel like we “showed up” God still does! He will be glorified despite our weakness. He doesn’t need large crowds or perfect voices to be satisfied all he asks for is your heart, your whole heart not just in the 20 min worship set, but in everything you do. In Romans (12: 1-2 MSG) is says “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: take your everyday, ordinary life-your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God has done for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well- formed maturity in you.
Let his presence overtake your body, mind and soul. You are so loved, by your heavenly father, fall into his arms and find rest, be undone, cry, dance, laugh, raise your hands, do whatever you feel called to do in these sweet moments in his presence. He loves to hear you sing his praises, your voice is a sweet sound to his ear, run to him with a childlike love unafraid of what others think, simply longing to be in the presence of the father. How amazing that we get to meet him there together.
