One of my favorite things we did in Nicaragua was the worship we had almost every morning at 5:30. Worship was something I looked forward to, we would pray, sing, and pray again. After worship we would split off to do our one-on-one with God. During our mornings with God, God started showing me how to truly worship. The more God showed me about worship the more I started to realize how little I truly knew about it. God told me that worship is so much more than just singing, raising your hands, praying, even though all this is awesome! Worship is a time where we block out the world, and really imagine ourselves standing before God, THE God who made us in His likeness; a God who loves us so much that He gave us His son, so we could be with Him forever! Worshipping Him with the praise and honor that He deserves!
One day God brought me to Psalm 100, which says,
“Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!
Worship the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing with joy.
Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
He made us, and we are his.
We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good.
His unfailing love continues forever,
and his faithfulness continues to each generation.”
Verse 2 stood out to me, the second part of it says, “Come before him, singing and joy.” Singing I got. Joy, not so much. I know joy is happy and sometimes loud, but I had always imagined worship being a time that you sang, and thanked God, and that is when you had big God moments. But that wasn’t what God told me. Every time I tried to tell God how I thought it was done He kept pointing me to Psalms 100.
Our last Tuesday in Granada, Padre (the guy who translated for us, but became so much more than just our translator, he was our friend, and was like a dad to us while we were there) had us over at his house. When we were about to leave he gave us each a bracelet he had made for us, and a short note to go with it. My note had a bible verse. The Bible verse Padre gave me was Psalms 100:2! Of all the thousands of verses, Padre chose the one God had been showing me. It was a God thing!
Now that I’m home, I haven’t had worship every morning with my team, but God has continued to teach me how to come before Him, which is to come before Him singing with joy
