Well Woman and Worship - PT. 2

For further consideration on worshiping in spirit and in truth...

To worship in Spirit.

Could this mean we need to engage the deepest parts of ourselves? What if part of true worship is embracing the immaterial parts of ourselves, and insisting to turn that attention to God? More so than our voices and physical posture, do our hearts and spirits worship? Can you connect that inward part of you with God? I think this is part of our life-long journey of attaching to God. I say life-long because this is a pervasive question of any relationship - am I continuing to lean into connecting with the person in front of me, and with God, with my full, true self? There are many layers and interpersonal dimensions to this question and practice.

You cannot truly connect with and grow to trust someone with a part of yourself that you do not fully know. We can please people by doing what they want with parts of our own existence, but usually this presents out of fear or conflict-avoidance. When we attempt to truly - sacrificially and authentically - connect with someone (God or human) we can only do that from the parts of ourselves that we know and are connected with. This ultimately means that part of worshiping God in spirit is that we must commit to fully exploring and knowing ourselves.

As for worshiping in Truth, this can be connected to a variety of thoughts. I would challenge that worshiping in truth means sharing our truthful level of trust with God - doubts included, no masking. One amazingly freeing thing the Holy Spirit has told me as I was rebuilding my faith was, "It is more important for my authentic self to struggle, than to have the right answers all the time." If you're in a worship setting and find yourself struggling to sing the words and mean it - instead of doubling down on your effort to ignore that feeling or disengage, take the time to tell Jesus what is difficult for you about trusting or praising Him in that moment. Share your honest, unfiltered thoughts and feelings.

Regularly lying about your level of trust in a relationship is a terrible habit. It is bad for your mind-body connection. It is bad for you belief in self worth. And it is bad for your connection to other people. It also limits others' ability to self-actualize when you lie to them about how you experience them. We need honest reverberation of how people experience us in our physical relationships.

God is totally not scared or retaliatory towards us. We function out of this insecure and unhealthy relationship dynamic and attachment habits with him so regularly. Because we lack health attachments and true experience of God, we tend to put our perception of our relation or reaction of another unhealthy person onto God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. This is untrue, and deeply harming us. God is securely attached to us. To borrow a Life Model Works term - God is the ultimate gentle protector. He is slow to anger and abounding in love. He invites us to come boldy before the throne of grace to obtain mercy and grace in our time of need.

Many of us have unhealthy beliefs around stating what we need, or asking for help, or sharing our doubts. In reality, God is way WAY less bothered, offended, or troubled in our doubt than we are.

Worship in Truth. Bring your doubt to God, and practice the due diligence of waiting on His response, and allowing Him to work with you into connection.