Here’s the bottom line when it comes to worshiping God. Everyone, regardless of their pasts, good or bad, struggle with true worship. And even though worship always occurs in the present, it is also a deepening journey of self-denial that walks us away from our dependence on the unhealthy support of others as well as relying only on ourselves to make life work. It is calling us, as Henri Nouwen describes in The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming to move from identifying with the two sons in the parable (Luke 15:11-32) to identifying and personally becoming more like the father.
Worship doesn't require a church service, it can occur when we are reading the Bible and all of a sudden the words come alive before us changing from a story, an idea, a concept into an encounter. Worship comes when we begin to realize that the very words we are reading are the very words we needed most right now to read. We are in fact on Holy Ground.
None of this happens in a predictable pattern, except to say if we invite God to speak to us he does not disappoint. Even in the times of profound silence where we do not sense his presence at all, we later come to understand that he was giving us exactly what we needed at the time, that he was aligning us to himself in a way that appropriately places us under his wings. He removes the sense (and the lie) that we are his equals, and even though it's painful, we begin to understand that most of our troubles come from operating outside of his advise and consent.
True worship of the type I have been discussing here is not a nice feeling during a walk on the beach at sunset or in the desert under the stars on a cloudless night unless these kinds of experiences connect us with the maker behind what we are experiencing.
In other words, not all worship is directed to the God of the Bible.
This also means that the result of true worship and false worship are not the same.
One draws us closer in dependence to God who is not us and the other draws us to feeling we are achieving a higher plain of living through an act of meditation.
One moves us to the source of forgiveness and recovery and the other enables us to whitewash over our problems and shortcomings temporarily.
One speaks truth into our lives in ways we can recover and move on and the other is a form of self-generated positive thinking that tells us we've got inside us what it takes.
One moves us into loving relationships with other flawed human beings yet, at the same time, protects our wounded hearts. The other convinces us that we are better off going it alone and isolating or insulating ourselves from others, even God.
One grows love, the other chokes it off.