What Does Praise and Worship Mean to You?

Praise and worship sounds so simple, rght?

Well, I was shocked to learn just how hard it can be when God made it clear that this was the roadmap for my breakthrough -it came as an instruction to praise Him. I thought all I needed to do was to sing a couple of songs to God and that's it!! When the rubber met the road, and I was due to pour out praise for my Lord as I had intended, I could not get the songs to roll off my tongue ! At the time, I did not even seem to understand what worship was. To compare it to a writer's mental block, I had a worship block!

Worship became an impossible task that I struggled with for a long time. It seemed as if I was waiting for the right feeling, the right emotion, so as to explode into worship. Sometimes I would start the worship, but it felt off. The "vibe" and "feel" were off for me. It felt all dry. Frustration kicked in. I started wondering in despair what I was doing wrong or was missing. I was on the verge of giving up-I felt miserable because I could not accomplish a simple instruction to praise God. It failed, I failed.

However, I eventually decided to push back the despair and frustration-I decided that it did not matter how I felt. Instead, I would just worship. I set out to just sing and praise God. I decided that it did not matter what I felt. I set out to worship and thank the Lord. To praise Him for His majesty. All I did was play worship music and sing along while proclaiming His goodness as per the words in the worship songs. Even in this last attempt to worship, no positive "vibe' or other "convenient emotion" was present. I worshiped away and slept.

When I woke up, and God-incidentally played a sermon on the Holy Spirit, is when I realized my error. The preacher exposed my lack of knowledge about the Holy Spirit of God. I realized that worship is not the glamorous feeling we get when singing along to praise songs. I learn that worship can be void of emotion. Worship comes down to proclaiming the truth about God -our feelings notwithstanding. It is all about worshiping in spirit and truth-as opposed to worshiping per the emotions of our soul. The revelation finally downloaded into my spirit- It is all about God and not us, so get over yourself and praise the Lord!