Have you ever felt like God is trying to tell you something? For instance, if you were eating a brownie and a hawk swooped down and stole the brownie right before it touched your tongue then you might think, “If hawk + brownie = almost getting face clawed off by bird claws, then perhaps I shouldn’t have a brownie. Message received, God.”

The last few weeks have been filled with little moments like that … less harrowing, but just as blatant. Almost every sermon, Christian song, sporadic devotion and even some conversations have had the same theme—worship.

It took a few very clear signals to actually catch on that God was trying to get my attention. It wasn’t until a conversation with my sister that I even realized what was happening. Once I shook the cartoon squiggles out of my mind, I got a little cocky. The thinking went like this:

This was twelve seconds in my mind. Now that you know I’m spastic, let’s proceed.

So God has really been laying on the messages about worship. Everything from the seven Hebrew translations to worshipful prayer has been inundating me. At first I thought He was telling me I needed to be more relaxed with my worship style, incorporating more hand-raising, foot-tapping and general not-caring-what-others-think-because-I’m-praising-my-awesome-God kinds of things.

That was my first conclusion. As I was telling my aforementioned sister about this revelation, I realized I was 100% wrong. It’s like God heard what I was saying and gave me a mind shake mid-sentence. Clarity is so wonderful, especially if you’ve been searching for it for weeks.

My conclusion? God doesn’t want my raised hands or baby dance moves. He doesn’t want me to join a praise band or lead a children’s choir. He doesn’t care about any of that if it doesn’t have a solid foundation.

What God wants is my heart. He wants me to worship Him all day, with everything I do. He wants me to worship Him with my attitude, my actions, my thoughts, my words and my intentions.

Raising my hands means nothing if I’m simply saying words. Leading a children’s choir isn’t worship if I do it so others will think I’m a good person. Hi, my name is Margaret and I’m just now learning what real worship is. Your 20s really are when you learn about yourself!

Now that God’s shown me that my intentions are His desire, my entire view has changed. I’m constantly asking myself, “Does this count as worship?” and “How can I worship in this?” and more eternally circulating questions. While it is a bit overwhelming, it’s so exciting to see God moving in my personal world! Thank you, Lord, for not giving up when I’m too distracted to listen to You.

Margaret, The Rope Editor

Remember a time when God grabbed your attention and blew your mind with His awesomeness? Tell me about it by emailing therope@thealabamabaptist.org.