free to be awesome… or not

Last week our worship leader sang amazing. Probably, the best she has sung in months, maybe in over a year, in my opinion/recollection. I was afraid to tell her that she sang better than she had in a long time, fearing I would imply that she hadn’t been singing to her potential.

Then two verses came to me. One of them was because my awesome worship leader sent a passage for the team to read: Hebrews 12. Verse 28 says, “thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.” Then 1 Samuel 16:7 came saying, “the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

God showed me in worship sounding good or not is not the issue. It is our reverence and awe for God.

The worship leader’s family has been through some really tough times (saying “really tough” doesn’t do their life justice). To this day they submit to God – fear Him, revere Him and are in awe of Him.

This is why I love my worship team. Not only are the musicians good but their hearts are proper. Sometimes we sound OK, and that’s OK because God looks at our hearts. Sometimes we sound great, and that’s great because God looks at our hearts and on top of that we sounded good!

I am not saying, what is often mentioned, that you are free to be imperfect. What I am saying is there is no pressure to be great performance wise every time for fear of falling short either before God or the gathering. There is no pressure to be better. Being better is just gravy (or icing whichever you prefer).  When we are looking only to God in our worship we are free to be awesome… or not.