Some of you may know that my first gig in ministry was as a worship leader. It was such an exciting time in my life! I was enjoying worship while working on a four track demo that I took to Nashville a few years later.
Leading worship is amazing. There is something powerful and beautiful and inspiring about leading people into the throne room. I always had the mindset that I had one foot in heaven and one on earth. My job was to give our congregation a hand into the presence of God. In his presence, that is where amazing things happened.
But during my time leading, I began to do something that is so easy, not just for worship leaders, but for worshippers in general. I began to worship the feeling.
Now, I never exchanged the word “feeling” with “Jesus” in a song. I never sang, “Shout to the feeling, all the earth let us sing,” but I was worshipping the feeling. I would gauge how good the set was by how good I felt after. If I got goosebumps at the climax of the song, I knew we’d reached the throne. And when I didn’t feel it, I knew we missed heaven. All of that from a feeling.
It seemed like a good plan until I stopped feeling anything in worship. Even the most moving song left me unaffected. I led, and sadly, I sold it, but nothing was happening inside me. I felt distant. I felt empty. “Why, God, why have you forsaken me?!?!”
Once I got down off the cross I realized something. I finally just asked God what was going on. Brilliant, right? Well, he answered, and the answer hurt.
“You aren’t worshipping me. You are worshipping the feeling my presence gives you.”
He was right and I knew it the moment he said it. So I asked God to forgive me. He did. Right at that moment I knew he had. But I didn’t feel God the next Sunday. In fact, I didn’t feel him in worship for 6 months. So I asked after a few Sundays what was up.
“I said I’m sorry and I really meant it, God,” I said.
He said, “I know you did, but I need to be able to trust you with my presence, and until I can do that, I can’t trust you with a feeling. So I am helping you learn to worship in spite of how you feel.”
Over the next six months, I really leaned in. I stopped relying on my feelings. I stopped trusting what God gave me as an indicator and began trusting in powerful verses like Ps 22:3, “Our God is enthroned on the praises of his people.” I don’t need to feel God to know he is present. I just need to trust his promise that if I will praise, he will be there.
I haven’t had to deal with that since those days, but I always have people tell me, “I just don’t seem to feel God when I worship here lately.”
With as much love and grace as I can muster, I simply say, “Be careful to worship God, not the feeling his presence gives you.”
Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all of your heart.”
Be blessed,
J