Worship without words
By Matt Dobie"But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
Matthew 6:6When I was 12, I had to have surgery on my throat which rendered me unable to speak for 2 weeks, and after that, even then I was only allowed to talk for short periods of time to rest my vocal chords and I had to have speech therapy to help restore my voice. My internal monologue was nearly deafening! I used to have to carry around this little whiteboard with me to communicate, and much to my dismay…
I was unable to sing.
This massively changed the way I thought about my relationship with God as for the first time it put a layer between my thoughts and the outside world. I had many people who misunderstood, thinking that I was pretending to be unable to speak or sing, when in reality I was actively told you must not speak or sing, and then later on having to choose to rest my voice.
And for the first time I seriously thought,
who is all of this for?
I’d mouth along with prayers, I’d draw musical notes on my white board and wave them about a bit, I suddenly realised it didn't matter whether I made sound or not. Who was the whiteboard and the mouthing along for? Was it for me, to show I was trying? Was it for others so people would believe me? …Or was it for God?
We can easily fall into the trap of purely performative christianity. Like some sort of outfit we can put on and wear over the top of ourselves, that looks good, it talks the talk… but does it walk the walk, or do we take it off again when we go home and close the door.
Silence and solitude often can act as a lens to focus where we are at in ourselves. Convicting things that need attention, or exposing areas that are being neglected. If we were to strip away all of the things and the stuff, what would be left of our relationship with God?
What others hear and see us do is one thing, but when there is nothing but us and God is something far more significant.
This week, try and find sometime, no matter how short, to be with God, and to worship him in the quiet of your own heart.
Lord,
We praise you even when there is no one to hear it but you, when we have no voice but our thoughts. Help us that in all that we do, we do it for you.
Amen
