Praise With My Mouth. Worship With My Life.
For much of my life, when I heard the word worship, I pictured a church.
I pictured people singing.
Hands raised.
Heads bowed.
People kneeling.
People saying, “Praise God!”
And there is nothing wrong with any of that.
I still sing. I still pray. I still enjoy being in a room with other people who are seeking God.
But the older I get, and the more I study the teachings of Jesus, the more I find myself asking a different question:
What if worship is not primarily something I do in a church?
What if worship is something I do with my life?
Because I have discovered something uncomfortable.
I can sing about surrender and still try to control everything.
I can sing about forgiveness while holding onto resentment.
I can raise my hands to God while refusing to extend them to someone who needs help.
I can say, “Praise God,” and then spend the next six hours complaining about everything that is wrong with my life.
I can kneel before God and still be too proud to apologize to another person.
And that makes me wonder:
What if the real test of my worship isn’t what I do when the music is playing, but what I do when the music stops?
That question has changed the way I understand worship.
Praise Is Something I Say. Worship Is Something I Become.
I see praise as recognition.
I praise God because I recognize something about God.
God is good.
God is merciful.
God is patient.
God has given me another day.
God has carried me through things I didn’t think I would survive.
Praise is my response.
I can say it.
I can sing it.
I can pray it.
I can write it.
I can tell someone about it.
But worship goes deeper.
Worship asks something of me.
If I say God is love, how do I love?
If I say God is merciful, how do I show mercy?
If I say God forgives me, how willing am I to forgive?
If I say God is truth, how truthful am I when the truth costs me something?
If I say I trust God, what happens when I don’t get my way?
That is where worship becomes real.
Praise is what I say about God.
Worship is what I do because of what I say about God.
And suddenly worship isn’t limited to Sunday.
My workplace can become a place of worship.
My home can become a place of worship.
My marriage can become a place of worship.
My relationships can become a place of worship.
My response to an angry customer can become worship.
My response to an employee who disappoints me can become worship.
My response to someone who hurts me can become worship.
Even my response to myself can become worship.
Because worship is ultimately about alignment.
Am I aligning the way I live with what I say I believe?
I Don’t Want a Sunday Faith
I’ve spent enough years on this earth to know that knowing something and living something are two very different things.
I’ve learned plenty of things.
I’ve heard sermons.
I’ve read Scripture.
I’ve studied Jesus.
I’ve had moments where something made perfect sense to me.
And then life happens.
Someone pushes my buttons.
Someone disappoints me.
Someone disrespects me.
Something doesn’t go according to plan.
And suddenly the thing I knew five minutes ago becomes the thing I have forgotten.
That’s where the real work begins.
I don’t want a faith that only works when everything is going well.
I don’t want a spirituality that exists only inside a church building.
I don’t want to talk about peace and then become controlled by anger.
I don’t want to talk about forgiveness and become a prisoner of resentment.
I don’t want to talk about trusting God while spending every waking moment trying to control the outcome.
I don’t want to simply know better.
I’ve spent too much of my life learning that knowing better doesn’t necessarily mean doing better.
That’s one of the great battles of the human experience.
The mind knows.
The heart struggles.
The old patterns take over.
And then we wonder why we keep repeating the same things.
Maybe worship is one of the ways we begin closing that gap.
Worship Happens in the Moment
Imagine someone cuts me off in traffic.
There it is.
An opportunity to worship.
Not because I need to close my eyes and sing.
Quite the opposite.
I need to stay awake.
I need to notice what is happening inside me.
My body reacts.
My mind starts creating a story.
Who does this person think they are?
They could have killed somebody.
People are idiots.
And before I know it, I have allowed a stranger to control my entire emotional state.
But what if I pause?
What if I breathe?
What if I recognize that the anger is happening inside me?
What if I choose not to become the anger?
That moment can become worship.
Nobody sees it.
Nobody applauds it.
Nobody knows I just had an opportunity to react differently.
But God knows.
And perhaps more importantly, I know.
I have just practiced becoming a different person.
That’s worship.
My Anger Can Become Worship
I don’t believe worship means becoming passive.
Sometimes worship means setting a boundary.
Sometimes it means saying no.
Sometimes it means walking away.
Sometimes it means having a difficult conversation.
Sometimes loving someone means telling them something they don’t want to hear.
But there is a difference between confronting someone from hatred and confronting someone from love.
There is a difference between setting a boundary because I want to punish someone and setting one because I am taking responsibility for my life.
There is a difference between silence because I am afraid and silence because I have learned that not every battle deserves my energy.
This is where Jesus continues to challenge me.
Can I be strong without becoming hard?
Can I be honest without becoming cruel?
Can I establish boundaries without becoming bitter?
Can I disagree without needing to destroy the person who disagrees with me?
That is worship too.
My Work Can Become Worship
I’ve spent decades working in restaurants and hospitality.
I’ve managed people.
I’ve dealt with customers.
I’ve dealt with problems.
I’ve dealt with employees who were frustrated, angry, disappointed, or simply having a bad day.
And I’ve had plenty of my own bad days.
So I have begun asking myself:
What does worship look like behind the restaurant doors?
Maybe it looks like how I speak to the employee who made a mistake.
Maybe it looks like whether I embarrass someone or teach them.
Maybe it looks like whether I take responsibility when something goes wrong.
Maybe it looks like whether I give credit when someone else deserves it.
Maybe it looks like whether I treat the dishwasher with the same dignity I give the executive.
Maybe it looks like whether I can lead without needing everyone to know that I am the one in charge.
That’s worship.
Not because management is sacred.
But because people are sacred.
Every interaction gives me another opportunity to practice the person I say I want to become.
My Body Can Become Worship
I’ve also begun looking at my body differently.
For years, I’ve treated health and fitness as something separate from spirituality.
But maybe they aren’t separate.
When I exercise, I am practicing discipline.
When I eat something that nourishes me instead of simply satisfying an impulse, I am practicing discipline.
When I rest, I am admitting that I have limits.
When I take care of myself, I am acknowledging that this body is part of the life I have been given.
I don’t worship my body.
I don’t worship food.
I don’t worship exercise.
But I can use all three as opportunities to practice stewardship.
And maybe discipline itself can become devotion.
The Real Worship Happens When Nobody Knows
This might be the part that matters most to me.
I can perform religion in front of people.
I can look spiritual.
I can say the right words.
I can know the Scriptures.
I can post the Bible verse.
I can sing the song.
But who am I when nobody is watching?
What do I do with temptation?
What do I do with anger?
What do I do with resentment?
What do I do when I could take advantage of someone and never get caught?
What do I do when admitting I was wrong would make me uncomfortable?
What do I do when forgiveness feels unfair?
What do I do when I am hurting?
Those moments reveal me to me.
And perhaps that is why they are so valuable.
They are a mirror.
They show me where I still need transformation.
The difficult person in my life may be giving me an opportunity to practice patience.
The person who hurt me may be giving me an opportunity to practice forgiveness.
The situation I cannot control may be giving me an opportunity to practice surrender.
The temptation I keep fighting may be showing me where I need discipline.
The criticism that makes me angry may be showing me where my ego still lives.
This doesn’t mean I need to call every painful experience God’s punishment or assume that every difficult person was intentionally placed in my life.
It means I can choose to ask a better question:
What can this experience teach me about myself?
That question changes the experience.
Maybe This Is What Jesus Meant
When I study Jesus, I keep coming back to how practical His teachings are.
Love your neighbor.
Forgive.
Serve.
Give.
Pray.
Don’t judge hypocritically.
Care for people.
Feed the hungry.
Help the hurting.
Seek the kingdom.
Love God.
These aren’t simply beliefs to put in my head.
They are instructions for living.
Jesus didn’t seem interested in creating people who could merely talk about love.
He taught people to love.
He didn’t simply talk about forgiveness.
He told people to forgive.
He didn’t simply talk about humility.
He demonstrated it.
And that’s why I keep coming back to this idea:
Maybe the greatest form of praise is to live in a way that reflects what I am praising.
If I praise love, then love me.
If I praise mercy, then show mercy.
If I praise forgiveness, then forgive.
If I praise God for giving me another chance, then perhaps I should become someone who gives other people another chance.
If I praise God for being patient with me, then perhaps I should become more patient with others.
Suddenly the worship service doesn’t end when I leave the building.
It begins.
Worship Is the Life After the Amen
Maybe the most important part of worship happens after the final song.
After the prayer.
After the “amen.”
When I walk outside.
When I get in my car.
When I go to work.
When my wife says something I don’t want to hear.
When my children need me.
When an employee frustrates me.
When someone cuts me off.
When I am tired.
When I am tempted.
When I am afraid.
When I don’t know what happens next.
That is where my faith gets tested.
That is where my beliefs become behavior.
That is where transformation becomes possible.
I can praise God with my lips in a few minutes.
But I get thousands of opportunities every day to worship with my life.
And perhaps that’s the worship I want now.
I still want the songs.
I still want the prayers.
I still want the church.
I still want the fellowship.
But I want something more.
I want my life to become the song.
I want my decisions to become the prayer.
I want my forgiveness to become the praise.
I want my patience to become the offering.
I want my service to become the sacrifice.
I want my humility to become the hymn.
I want my love to become the evidence.
Because at the end of the day, I don’t want to simply be able to say:
“I worship God.”
I want someone to be able to look at the way I live and say:
“I can see what you worship.”
Maybe that’s the real challenge.
Not:
How loudly can I praise?
But:
How faithfully can I live?
Not:
How often do I kneel?
But:
How often am I willing to surrender?
Not:
How spiritual do I appear?
But:
How much am I becoming the person I say I want to be?
And perhaps the greatest worship I can offer God is not found in my voice at all.
Perhaps it is found in the space between what I know and what I do.
That space is where my transformation happens.
That space is where I practice love.
That space is where I practice surrender.
That space is where I practice forgiveness.
That space is where I become less of the old me and more of the person I believe God is calling me to become.
Praise is what comes from my mouth.
Worship is what comes from my life.
And I don’t want my worship to end when the music stops.
I want my life to become the music.
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