During a short winter retreat to the ocean, God impressed me with a picture of his glory. I was sitting in front of a large picture window, gazing out to the ocean. The sun, newly risen, glistened over the water. Its reflection was so bright, I had to bow my head down to shield my eyes from the glare. I wonder if that’s how the Israelites felt when Moses came down from the mountain with his face aglow with the glory of the Lord. No man has seen God as even his reflection is too great for us to look at.

Worship. It’s one of the ways God has given us to experience him. One of my clients once said, “Leslie, I’m not into worship.” What he meant was he’s not into singing hymns on Sunday morning. He was definitely into worship, he just had other gods.

In genuine worship, we bow ourselves to God. We consent to his transforming work in our lives. We not only acknowledge him as God, but we allow him to work as God in our lives. That’s only reasonable, considering what he’s done for us Paul writes. (Romans 12:2).

But to be honest, sometimes I have a hard time trusting God to work. Don’t you? There are days I feel overwhelmed with the wretchedness of mankind. I struggle with doubting God’s sovereignty and his love when a counseling client tells me that his father held him by his ankles and dunked his head in a flushing toilet to teach him a lesson. Or a woman discloses to me that her father sexually abused her although the family attended church every week. In those moments, it can seem like the evil one is in charge, and I am tempted to believe the lie that God is not good.

Worship, both private and corporate, helps me remember that there is a much bigger picture than I can grasp and there is a good and loving God who is in charge of all of life. The psalmist prayed, “Blessed are those that learn to acclaim you. Who walk in the light of your presence” (Psalm 89:15). During worship, I purposefully take my eyes off the circumstances and fix my eyes on Christ. It is in this place that my spirit is uplifted and calmed. I am reminded that I can rest in the knowledge and assurance that he is almighty God, omnipotent and omniscient, and in control even when I don’t understand.

The discipline of worship helps my spirit remember what is true—that I am a creature, God is the creator. When I get too big for my own good or the weight of the world is on my shoulders and I think, in my pride, that I have to carry it, entering into the presence of God through worship reminds me as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:21 “Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ.” Worship keeps me from losing sight of my goal—a reward of “well done my good and faithful servant” and not losing my way through life with temporal delights.

Worship can also be expressed through our body. For example, lifting our hands in praise or singing our heart out to God with our voice are ways we can yield our body to the truth that God is worthy of our time, attention and praise. To worship God is to fix our gaze on the loveliness of Christ in such a way that our emotions come into congruence with our faith and belief in God.

Worship then becomes more than an intellectual acknowledgment of who God is but a heart-felt experience in the presence of the living God.