Worshipping to Be Seen By God

“Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits— who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” (Psalm 103:1-5, NIV)

Sometimes, when I read scripture, I am so blown away by the deep and burning desires of people to praise God and glorify Him with all their being. That’s something that I know I grow complacent in at times, but I think with the way the world is in 2021, those deeper burnings to honor God become less and less genuine.

Because in the face of likes and shares, it can be hard to keep your intention to honor only God and not promote self. Because maybe life doesn’t revolve around being an influencer, or “famous,” but for a lot of what’s out there today, it can be all about how the world sees us and how we can become more well-known; rather than how God sees us and how we can make Him more recognizable to those that are hungry for him.

And a lot of the media the modern-day church puts out has more to do with ticket sales, chart-topping, and coming off as a spiritual authority more than anything else. I get it, it’s easy to get caught up in all of that when that whole world can be accessed by and participated in with a device that fits in the palm of your hand. It’s something I think we all can get caught up in very easily.

Everything he wrote for God was just that: for God. I don’t think he was hoping for any of it to be this long-lasting legacy for people to remember him. It was just David’s pure heart and soul to God; the fact we get to read them and resonate with them today could only be achieved by God’s preserving hand.

So when I read those verses, my heart jumps and says, “Yes, Lord, make me like that! Make me into a woman who urges her very soul to praise you because I can grasp those things in my heart. Help me to remember where I should be– a pit– and where you’ve taken me instead. Remind me just how deep the knowledge is that you forgave my sin and healed those diseases within me– both physical and mental. Make my very soul react in praise by seeing the deep truths of your love for me.”

And I want to feel that in the very innermost parts of me, not so I can turn around and write a devotion, not so that I could make a post on social media that makes me seem more “in-tune” with God than anyone else. I want to realize that and live it because that is what I was created to do. I wasn’t put on this earth to make Tiktoks or post YouTube videos in the hopes that people will see me and like me. I was put here to glorify God and be a reminder to others to do the same.

But if that doesn’t genuinely start from my heart that is overflowing with the realization of Jesus, who He is, and what He did; if my soul doesn’t exist in the deep intimacy of knowing and experiencing it, then it’s all for show. And when it’s all for show, that doesn’t lead anyone to Jesus. It just keeps them in the same cycles of self-promotion, destructive living, and sin. Sure, it may stir up a feeling for a moment, but those feelings will never fan the flame of a true life-change. It will fizzle and fade, and leave people waiting and searching for the next fleeting moment of emotion.

I want to worship God because my very soul can’t contain it. I want to live a life that doesn’t reserve praising Jesus for Sunday mornings where people see me. I want my praise to lift my soul up from the humdrum of everyday life and set my sight on something worth selling out for: Jesus.

I remember in 2017, I asked God to help me turn towards Him more. I asked Him to help me remember Him more and more throughout my day until it consumed me. But I didn’t pray that because I was hoping to be someone I wasn’t. I wasn’t asking God to permeate my thought-life so that I could be more pseudo-spiritual. It was because I genuinely wanted Jesus to be the knee-jerk reaction of my mind to meditate on, because I knew the more I thought of Him, the deeper I would love Him, and the deeper I loved Him, the more my life would point towards Him.

So that’s my prayer for you today: that you would desire Jesus so deeply, that you would surrender your every thought to Him and ask Him to come to the forefront of your mind more often throughout the day. I am praying that you become the kind of Christian that is naturally a wellspring of praise for Jesus because you know the reality of who He is and how deeply He loves you. I pray that no social platform, viral video, or amount of followers would beckon you away from the only One who matters.

Because when we are really walking in a faithful relationship with God, it won’t matter who is watching. He could be the only one with His eyes on you, and it would be enough.