We have kicked off a new series, “More than Music,” and I have been challenged to think differently about how I approach God in worship. We all have routines, and routines that are helpful as we seek to develop a sense of consistency in our connection with God, but what if God desires more for our relationship with Him within our patterns and routines?
Even God’s creation screams of how He gives birth to new things in the midst of routine. One of the things I love about New England is the four seasons! I really don’t have a favorite, but what I do love is that despite the fact that there is always a Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, when Spring arrives God gives birth to something new in the midst of a season as routine as Spring. New life, new sounds, new smells—despite how ordinary the seasonal rhythms of life may be, God demonstrates how He can bring new life from the ordinary.
A lot of people get excited about the vision that is shared of what God is going to do at the end of times, but the thing that I think is amazing is that God bases what He is going to do on what has already been… Revelation 21:5 says, “Behold, I am making all things new.” His plan is not to scrap the old rhythms and routines of the world, but to redeem and restore them to what they should be. That has been His approach since the establishment of His creation. God’s created order makes it possible for new life to spring forth.
So how does this relate to our approach of worship? Even King David who worshiped God in more ways than we can count allowed his routine to be disrupted to be able to experience God in new and fresh way! David proclaimed, “Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things!” (Psalm 98:1) and “I will sing a new song to you, O God; upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you” (Psalm 144:9).
Isn’t that amazing?!? Despite the history and relationship David had with God, David continued to seek new ways to worship God. My conviction is that the ways God wants to see us worship Him is not by reinventing ourselves into something other than what God created us to be, but to use who He created us to be, to honor him. “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). God wants us to examine our routines, and to allow Him to redeem the routines of our life so that He can make our daily life an act of worship that is NEW and SWEET and BEAUTIFUL!
