Mute your mic
This Friday, I attended a faith discussion, and the moderator asked everyone to answer, “What do you do whenever you feel far from God?”
It didn’t take long for me to figure this one out: Blast some serious deep, upbeat praise and worship music.
I almost can never go wrong with Praise & Worship, no matter how distant and unwilling I am to pray or even crack open the Bible, give me a few minutes of R&B praise, and your girl is back in action.
I remember growing up and dreading Crossover Service. If you aren’t Nigerian, Crossover Service is a Christian ritual we often do on New Year’s Eve, where your home church typically hosts an all-night prayer and worship session to ring in the New Year.
As I said, I dreaded it because I knew it meant I had to sit through hours of a boring sermon, but there was one part of the service that always got me the praiseee & worshippp.
The mood was always electric. I can’t describe the euphoric feeling that seemed to radiate throughout the room as a band of guitars, drums, and piano lifted the weight of the past year and welcomed the incoming year with a sense of expectant hope.
I’d look around the church hall and spot families with barely enough to feed on at home, forget all their present worries, and let the music lift them to somewhere otherworldly.
And don’t get me started on all the dancing! Many would leave their shoes (and home training) somewhere close to their seats and boogey down like there’s no tomorrow. It wasn’t unusual to have some extra excited folks doing backflips at the altar.
When I first arrived in the U.S. for school in 2010, I remember struggling so much to find a home church simply because I was looking for a place that could PRAISEEEEEE.
I bet you can relate, right? We all have “that one praise or worship song’ that gets us “in the spirit”.
It’s amazing to realise how much God also adores praise. There’s nothing like a gift that the recipient appreciates, right?
The Psalms remind us of this at every turn. Check out Psalm 22:3, 150:1–6, 100:4, 147:1. No doubt, God eagerly desires and wants our praise.
The curious thing, though, is that for all the Bible talks about God loving praise, you know what else it talks about? God can just as well reject praise.
We rarely talk about the latter so let’s do so today.
Imagine the group of well-made-up and uniformed choristers at your local church getting ready to mount the stage, and all God does is whip out a set of noise-canceling headsets to tune them out.
Or imagine waking up in the morning to spend time with God, breaking out in your favorite song, and God whistles to the angels, “Turn off her mic!!”
If you find it hard to picture God doing this, then I suggest we hop over to Amos 5:21–23
“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.”
Dang.
Whatever happened to the all-loving image of a tender Jesus petting a meek lamb? Cause this doesn’t sound like that God.
God literally uses the words “I hate”…and then calls their praise “noise”
Dang.
Isn’t God being a tad bit too dramatic?
Is it that REALLY that deep?
According to God, it absolutely is.
In Romans 12:2, the Bible makes the kind of worship God wants to receive super clear.
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship.”
The worship God finds pleasing and acceptable comes from a heart that’s holy and pure, not one corrupted by bitterness, unforgiveness, envy, hatred, malice….the list goes on.
So, beyond the sound of the well-coordinated singers, under flashy, colorful studio lights and a finely tuned keyboard, God listens into the deepest, darkest places of the hearts from which we worship Him.
What would he find in your heart?
It’s a stuttering call for you and me to reflect. I’m writing this on Saturday, and tomorrow is Sunday.
It’s a reminder to me, and hopefully to you, that we both will be doing God a favor if we take time to ask ourselves some tough questions before we go off to pick out our church outfit for tomorrow.
Should I apologise to my Husband for how I spoke to him last night?
Shouldn’t I have interjected when my friend was mocking and gossiping about a mutual friend behind her back rather than sit and listen in uncomfortable silence?
Should I really be spending all this time on Instagram?
Is this Netflix show any good for my mental and sexual purity?
Purge before you praise. For to God, your heart’s content holds greater worth than the lyrics on our lips.
That is unless you want God muting your mic.
Au revoir, mes amis, I have an unholy load of schoolwork waiting on me.
Luh y’all
As always, if you’d like guidance on how to step up your Bible Study game, let’s connect here.
