Selfishness

Recently (for like 3 weeks), I’ve been convicted about selfishness. But not just in all aspects of life: specifically selfishness during worship.

It started out when my father explained why he loves hymns so much when compared to most contemporary worship songs. He says he loves hymns because they are so beautifully written to express God’s beauty and glory and they still are relevant today in application but worship songs tend to focus more on us humans.We sing about how we want to worship God and how we could worship God like this, “I could sing of your love forever” for more than 50% of the song instead of just actually singing about his love like this, “To God be the glory, great things He has done; So loved He the world that He gave us His Son, Who yielded His life an atonement for sin, And opened the life gate that all may go in." How much of our worship is about what we do versus what God has done?

Of course I was rolling my eyes because my father is old and biased. But that thought stuck with me. Some worship songs I’ve sung in Christian events have disturbed me and there have been verses that I won’t sing because it doesn’t appear to worship God.

Worship: ¹to show devotion to; ²an act of religious devotion usually directed to one or more deities. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship -- to give, at its simplest, worth to something.

How often when we go into “worship” do we end up worshipping and singing about ourselves? Since I started thinking about it, I’ve been getting more and more uncomfortable when the words ‘I’, ‘me,’ ‘mine,’ and ‘my’ appear in every line of a song. I’ve started reading through the Psalms this year with my accountability partner and it’s amazing what I have learned. Take Psalm 18 for example which was sung after David had been delivered from his enemies and from Saul during that epic time when Saul kept chasing after David.

This song first starts out with a declaration of love towards God. And then the next 35 verses are just proclaiming how awesome God is. I know for me I will say my God is awesome, but I'll say it in only a few lines or phrases and then I’ll move on to asking Him something I want and not just asking him for 'petty things' but things like, Give me a passion for this, or I want strength to do this which I think is Your will, or I want to feel Your love more. Instead, shouldn’t I be saying nonstop, “God, You are so marvelous, I am so unworthy of Your protection and Your love. My God is a majestic Saviour that loves justice and mercy. God, You are in control of the earth where the mountains dwell and the oceans move and I concede my life to Yours. You are in control of my life. Your will and only Yours should occur in my life and with this passion”?

And then, when David mentions something that he accomplished, he gives all the benefit to God. In verse 38 for example David sings, “I crushed them [his enemies] so that they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet. You [God] armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet.” David claims that he did those things physically but isn't afraid or even hesitant to admit that really it was God that gave him the ability and power to do so.

I don’t think that often I give God the glory when something good happens. When bad things happen, I’m more prone to say, “well maybe God doesn’t want this for me” but I rarely say, “God is the one that allowed me to stay focused in my classes and get me past the semester when all I wanted was to be at home with my family” I usually say, “I forced myself to focus even though it was so hard and I was miserable being away from my messed-up family but I got through it.”

How selfish is that of me? SO Selfish! But now that I’m aware of it when I go into a time of worship, am I praying about me? Or what God wants? Am I singing about me and my friends? Or about my Savior? These are just some things to ponder.