Worship as a Spiritual Discipline: Pursuing a Mature Relationship with God
Becky Ahlberg presents worship as a spiritual discipline rooted in a real and maturing relationship with God. She argues that worship requires pursuit, purpose, priority, personal surrender, and healthy participation in the body of Christ.
- Worship grows from a relationship with God that requires intentional nurture and discipline.
- Pursuit, purpose, priority, and personal surrender are essential to mature worship.
- Real worship is both personal and corporate, expressed through healthy life in the body of Christ.
By Becky Ahlberg
Worship is a spiritual discipline. It is relationally driven, to be sure, but like any healthy relationship it takes dedicated nurture to overcome our selfish nature. Healthy relationships require constant attention and, yes, discipline. They are dynamic and ever changing.
Bookstores are full of books that offer help and insight into building better relationships with parents, children, spouses, coworkers, employers, employees, and even our pets! They all seem to agree we are drawn into relationships by our nature (to love and be loved and to find companionship and meaning for our lives), but we stay in them because of our diligent nurture (commitment, responsibility, and maturity).
That doesn’t sound very inspiring on the face of it. We are so good at romanticizing relationships and, I think for too many of us, romanticizing worship. Unfortunately, sometimes it is just plain hard work—with plenty of rewards, but still arduous.
We would much prefer the fairy-tale “happily ever after” description of our relationship to God. We read our Bibles, go to church, tithe, pray, sing, and do good deeds; and then we live happily ever after. We do our part (be good) and he does his part (blessing us).
The best thing we can say about that is it’s immature. In the long run, it will also be very unfulfilling and leave us longing for something more. It’s imperative we understand real worship won’t happen without a real relationship. Appearances are a sham; adoration comes from the heart.
So how do we move past our nature to nurture the mature worshiper in us all, fulfilled in our relationship to God, through Christ and his church? Let’s take a look.
Pursuit
Healthy relationships are built on pursuit. We actively seek out relationships. We want to be around those who are attractive and stimulating. We learn about ourselves through how others treat us and respond to us. Relationships won’t happen if we wait; we must pursue.
God certainly has pursued us, but do we pursue him? Do we long to be with him? Do we look for ways to meet with him? Do we think about him incessantly? Do we order our lives by the opportunities to interact with him?
Can you share the following words of David? “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).
Or do we ignore him until we need something? Do we take him for granted because “he knows I love him,” and do we selfishly assume he will meet our needs and make us happy with little thought of how he feels about things?
Pursuit means to move first. It means that we look for ways to build a relationship. It means we do everything we can to find ways to please. It means we put the relationship above our own needs.
Of course, the great paradox of selfless love is that it brings the deepest relationships. God provides the best model of that in his selfless love for us. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son. . . . We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:10, 19, King James Version).
Purpose
Healthy relationships happen on purpose. Of course there are wonderful moments of serendipity and delightful spontaneity, but those are a result of intentional commitment that puts us in the right place and the right time to enjoy them.
Planning and looking forward to time together is one of the true joys of a relationship. The anticipation drives the expectation of time well spent. The preparation is part of the excitement—our thoughts, actions, and hopes are all focused on the encounter. “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8).
Even in the worst of times, the anticipation of solace drives us to those who know us best and love us most. We seek them out and bare our souls knowing we will be comforted and strengthened.
Is that true of our relationship with God? Our worship should come from the deep well of love that God purposed for us before we were born. “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:4, 5).
Priority
Healthy relationships are a constant priority. They need tending. Many have faltered simply from lack of attention. That means planning and carving out time and going the extra mile for the love of another.
Time together doesn’t have to be extravagant, just dedicated. “I’m making time for you, not because I have to but because I want to.” Making a relationship a priority—and making sacrifices for it, if necessary—says much about the one you love, but also about you. “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things” (Philippians 3:8).
Willingly giving of oneself to another—no matter the cost—is the true definition of devotion. Relationships that get the leftovers of our time and affection won’t last. They are deeply unfulfilling to both parties.
Devotion is the glue that holds a relationship together. Isaiah paints a beautiful picture of God’s devotion to us: “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart” (Isaiah 40:11). Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me . . . and I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14, 15).
Personal
This is usually where we start. We want a personal relationship and too often we define it by what it does for us, not to us. We make our lists of what we want in a relationship, how it must meet our needs and fill our lives. We seldom ask ourselves what we are willing to bring to a relationship.
I remember my mother once saying, “If you spend your time working to be a perfect wife, you’ll have no trouble finding the perfect husband.” Sound advice to be sure, but it isn’t very romantic! We don’t want to face the fact that personal relationships change us, shape us, and define our priorities.
A personal relationship with God, through Christ, will change us dramatically and completely. And so we must ask, “Am I willing to do whatever it takes to have a relationship with God?” That’s not usually where we start. We want relief, not responsibility. Unfortunately, real relationships—and yes, real worship—begin with personal surrender, not personal satisfaction. And the sooner we understand that, and start working on it, the sooner we will find deep personal satisfaction.
One More Thing
That leads to a final crucial fact about the spiritual discipline of worship: It doesn’t happen in isolation. It is our nature to want God all to ourselves, but we must intentionally nurture the maturity that makes room for his children as well.
Every personal relationship affects other relationships. Every relationship comes with family members, coworkers, and other friends. They crowd in and siphon off time and energy and focus. But they are integral to the health of the relationship. You get me, my husband, my kids, their spouses, my parents, my siblings, my friends . . . because they shape me, too. Any refusal to accept them will definitely affect our relationship.
It is fascinating to hear people wax eloquent about their relationship to God and then, in practically the same breath, express loathing for his church. That definition of worship means vertical only: “If I’ve got God, I don’t need you.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. The church, with all its deep flaws, is still the body of Christ and was established to be God’s agent in this world (Ephesians 3:10ff). Like it or not, a healthy relationship with God requires (and this may be one of your sacrifices) a healthy relationship with his church. That makes it a purposeful priority and pursuit!
John said it best: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20, 21).
Consequently, real worship includes both a personal relationship and a corporate one. You won’t have a healthy relationship with God, and you will not demonstrate your love, adoration, devotion, and surrender to him, unless it is lived out in your healthy functioning in the body of Christ. Real worship isn’t something we just do and then critique on the way home in the car! It is the response of our nature to the loving nurture we have experienced in God and, hopefully, his church. It is our purposeful pursuit of God’s priorities in our lives and in our churches. It is glad (and often not so glad) discipline that is teaching us who we are becoming—together.
We have made a significant blunder of late in defining worship as music—or even artistic expression. It is certainly a part of our worship. But real worship is so much more!
We must remember that for God, our Father, what we sing, where we meet, how we choose elders, whether we have Communion before or after the sermon, whether we dress up or dress down, and whether we use the arts in our worship, are just incidentals!
His great joy (and the evidence of our devotion) is in seeing his children together: Lovingly bearing his image. Joyfully working together. Nurturing the young ones, caring for the old or infirm ones. Laughing and crying together, celebrating birth and marriages, mourning pain and loss. Bearing one another’s burdens, rejoicing in one another’s victories. Reminiscing about his impact in our lives, learning new things together. Planning for, anticipating, and accepting the growth of our family as we watch the stages of maturation. Telling the legacy of “the story of our family” to anyone and everyone who will listen.
And then they, too, can become part of the family of God and spend their days in real worship.
Becky Ahlberg is worship and neighborhood engagement minister at Anaheim (California) First Christian Church and a CHRISTIAN STANDARD contributing editor. She is chairperson of the National Church Music Conference, meeting April 21-24, 2009, in Plainfield, Indiana.
