Worship brings you into God's presence

You know those moments just before you wake up when you're already stressed? While you're still half asleep, your endless to-do list overwhelms you and awakens anxiety, pressure to perform and fear of failure, all before you've even had your first coffee. Not a great way to start the day. It would be much nicer to start the day joyfully and feel a sense of peace and the unconditional certainty that great things await you, wouldn't it?

Worship is easy when God works miracles in our lives. When a seemingly hopeless situation suddenly turns into a blessing, when we receive help from an unexpected source or when an unsolvable problem disappears into thin air. But what about days that feel difficult? Days that are as grey and cold as a rainy November day and God seems far away? Why should we worship God and sing praises from the bottom of our hearts when there are so many issues in our lives that He leaves us to deal with alone?

Because worship is not about praising God for individual miracles, but for who he is. He is the Creator of the universe and our loving Father, to whom we can come with any problem, no matter how small. God does not change, he is always good, he is always there and he wants to bless us. He knows exactly how to turn the greatest pain in our lives into our greatest triumph. All he needs from us is trust and obedience. God will always provide what we need. But because He has given us a free will, we can actively choose not to live in His peace and provision.

However, when we choose to praise and worship God every day, no matter what our circumstances look like, we open the door to God's throne room and can run into the arms of our Father. We worship to give God glory. God does not need our worship, he knows how great he is. But we need to worship God. Because if we don't, we so easily forget who God is. We believe that we have to solve our problems on our own and forget that God's peace and his love are always there for us.

Next Step: Try how your day changes when you start it with worship: Set your alarm half an hour earlier and spend time with God in prayer or worship.