Worship With Words
"You don't have the power to make rainbows or waterfalls, sunsets or roses, but you do have the power to bless people by your words and smiles You carry within you the power to make the world better." -Sharon Larsen
I have never been a good singer. When I'm alone in the house or in the car belting out my favorite songs, sure, I sound downright Sinatra-esque. But, around other people, I tend to get more self-conscious and realize my voice is the one cracking and I'm the one off-key. So, during worship songs in church, I tend to lower my singing volume from a 10 down to a 1, nice and quiet so no one can hear me and therefore no one's day can be ruined.
Words have power, amen? The age-old saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me," has to be one of the biggest myths since Bigfoot. Anyone with more than a day or two of experience on Earth can tell you that is the furthest thing from the truth. At 35 I can honestly and wholeheartedly endorse a broken bone over a hurtful word. Hear me out, a broken bone is excruciating in the moment. A week later, it's painful. A month later, it's sore. Within a few months, it's bound to be healed and the pain subsided. However, if you are reading this right now, I can all but guarantee that you and I have the shared experience of hearing a hateful and hurtful word thrown at us, overhearing gossip about ourselves, or hearing through the grapevine something that was said about us that was so devastating, the pain felt in the moment hasn't subsided and is just now as it was then, some decades later. Words have power, indeed. This is exactly why we train our kids right away to be careful with what comes out of their mouths and to filter everything they say so that they don't offend, hurt, or mislead with their words.
With this in mind, I find it so fascinating that a tool of ours, our words, can be so destructive, and at the same time capable of such amazing worship to our Creator and Savior. Psalm 100, Hebrews 12:28, Isaiah 25:1, Psalm 150:6, John 4:24, the list of scriptures nudging and encouraging us to lift up our voices in thanks and praise goes on and on. It is, with no exaggeration, one of the most important parts of our service to God.
One of the areas I see the church today struggling with is finding the balance between filtering out the offense our words can cause, which is good, but overcorrecting and beginning to filter out the public worship we are called to. All on the off-chance our praise, in any form, might offend someone. I'm here to tell you that I have never, and will never condone offending someone on purpose. However, one of the ways we worship God is by telling others of the love and grace He has given us. I worship the Lord every time I mention His name, every time I acknowledge His goodness and protection, every time I bring up His unfailing presence through the hardest times of life, and yes, even every time I sing His praises off-key!
Worship in this facet is not something we can tiptoe around. It is not something that we can do with half our mind on worship, and the other half focused on how it might look or come off, how weird it might sound to someone who doesn't believe like we do, or how awkward we may seem in doing it. Worship is something that must be done with a confidence that can only come from surrendering to the love and salvation that Christ has brought you, and expressing that reckless love to the world around you. Words have power, and we must be aware of the dangers and destruction they can cause. But for goodness sake, words have power and we must be ready to use them to proclaim the truth of our Creator, the love of our God, and the grace given by our Savior to a world that so desperately needs to hear it! Otherwise, we might as well be mute.
As a millennial, I see my generation far too preoccupied with playing it more safe when it comes to public worship than we were ever called to play it in scripture. I can't overemphasize enough how against outright offense or shoving your beliefs down anyone's throat I am. But, I look at the disciples' lives and how unafraid to worship through proclaiming Christ as Savior to anyone and everyone within earshot. How each of them worshipped with the power of words at every opportunity they got, sometimes having great success, and sometimes being told off. But each time, they worshipped with that reckless love we are all called to do so with. Not half of themselves dedicated to worship and half dedicated to fitting in, not stepping on toes or appearing awkward. Every ounce of their minds, hearts, and souls was wrapped up in the worship of God.
Friends, that is how I want to worship in 2025. I want to step away from that fear of being heard singing off-key and instead step into the experience of fully worshipping the one who claimed me, chased me, and saved me. Let's reclaim the power of words for worship!
There is someone in your life, your office, your friend group, maybe even your family that your public worship of God can touch today. Your acknowledgment and praise of the grace present in your life could be the seed that is planted within them that God cultivates into a full-blown relationship with Jesus Christ. Do you really want to miss that opportunity just to save yourself a little awkwardness? Praise God in all that you do and say, and watch what He does with the world around you. Live boldly, because you worship a bold Savior.
