Where Is My Mind?

In a rare Sunday last week, all the lead guitarists were unavailable, so I stepped in at the last minute. It’s always fun to be able to focus solely on guitar, and I enjoy utilizing pedals more effectively than when singing. However, as the day went by, it was striking what a different experience it was from the usual Sunday on stage. My mind was focused on the execution of the music and following the other musicians in the band. When leading the singing, my mind is on the words, and I’m much more in tune with the congregation and seeking the Holy Spirit. At the end of yesterday, it felt less like I worshiped God than after a Sunday of leading and singing.

Note: this blog builds upon itself. Meaning, I realize that service and sacrifice are part of worship, that it’s not about how we feel per se, and I have written about those issues in previous posts. So we’ll forge ahead and get to the point.

Here’s the question: If your job requires a great amount of technical skill and concentration, are you able to worship in that? At the end of the day, do you feel like you’ve worshiped, or simply completed a valuable task? It was surprising how different I felt playing lead guitar without singing, and realized that my worship is heavily dependent upon the words we’re singing and that connection to the greater congregation lifting our voices together. Upon reflection, I think the greater issue is not where our mind is in that moment, as it is where our heart is grounded at all times. I believe this is the reason people have equated worship with the Sunday service at church. They associate worship with their mind being 100% focused on thinking “God thoughts” more than their hearts being surrendered to Jesus Christ. Therefore, when the faculties of their mind are required to attend to work, family, playing a sport, they would disassociate these moments with worshiping God. At the same time, when people are in church and thinking about the words they are singing, but their hearts are not following Jesus, they are not worshiping. Simply engaging your mind in thinking about the words you’re singing does not mean your heart believes it, and worship is a heart issue. It can produce a feeling of having worshiped, a good feeling of honoring God, because we’ve set our minds on what is “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence…anything worthy of praise” (Phil. 4:8). According to Paul, this is where our mind should be, but without our hearts committed to Christ at the core, having surrendered to regeneration by the Holy Spirit, our hour of engaged singing on Sunday is not true worship, and the rest of our week we miss out on worshiping God in every single moment, whether at work, play, in church singing or mowing the lawn.

“Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice!”
- Psalm 105:3

My goal with this blog is to keep posts around 500 words or less. Having gone over (this explanation not helping), I’ll stop there, and am interested in any thoughts or disagreements you may have.