There is a worship song by Hillsongs called Rest in You. It is one of their songs that I like a lot, since I feel that it holds a simple truth that is a very useful truth to remember.

The lyrics are short:

Your faithfulness endures always
Where mountains fall and reason fails
And You calm the raging seas
And You calm the storms in me, again

All I know is I find rest in You
All I know is I find rest in You

My heart will praise throughout the night
Where singing seems a sacrifice
Your grace is all I need
Your grace is all I need

This song serves as a reminder to me what I should be doing when things aren't going so well. I know these past few months, I hadn't done these things so well. And a lot of times, I ended up writing up rather depressing blog entries. Part of me just wanted to get it out there, and I didn't really expect anyone to read it. But as it turns out, I later realized that I had a lot more people following my blog who could read 漢字 than I originally thought.

This served as a reminder to me to get back to perhaps what I should be doing.

The other day I was thinking about a lot of things, and when all my housemates stepped out of the house to work on their design projects, I figured, this is a time when I just need to worship. So I pulled out my guitar and worshiped and worshiped.

It was an amazing time to just be real before God. And it also brought to light to me that there are a lot of things in life that I still held before God. Things that I needed to give up to Him and release.

One thing that I've been coming to appreciate more and more is that personal worship and personal reading of the Word. Church gatherings are great, and fellowship events are awesome. But there's something different about being able to read, pray and worship in a small room with the door closed and with no one around you. All pretense is gone. In part, I believe this is why Jesus tells us to go into our rooms and close the door behind us when we pray.

There is a lot of expectation within the church to act a certain way or to participate in service in a certain way. During sharing night, Ken was sharing about how he was lenting musical worship. And how maybe people might look at him weird if he wasn't singing during a time of musical worship, opting to maybe read his Bible instead. And in a lot of ways, I really thought how wrong that is that there actually is an expectation of how we should worship God in the church. Worship is about the heart. So singing without the heart is not worship. You can be completely silent and be completely worshiping. In fact, is that not what Ecclesiastes suggests? "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know what they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few."

This is why I realized how important personal worship is. Whether it be singing, sitting quietly, reading the Word, praying, interceding, etc. Doing all these things not only corporately, but personally is a really refreshing thing.

God is a God to be revered. And to worship Him out of an attitude of looking good or fitting in is fairly misconstrued. I know I'm sometimes guilty of this. Which is why personal worship and meditation on the Word is a good check for my heart.