When is it time to worship?

With that question asked, it's good to think of
a) what is worship in the first place, and
b) what purpose does it serve?

Worship is intimate communion time with God. A time to celebrate the burdens we've been carrying. A time to express our thankfulness for the joy the Lord has put into our lives. A time to receive from the Lord. He loves it when we worship Him. He absolutely loves it!

And I don't think that's selfish or prideful of the Lord. I think He's above having those human characteristics applied to Him, and well, I believe He made us with an intentional purpose to worship Him. When we do what we were made to do, that makes a lot of sense! It's not an accident that we in turn, when we worship, have great senses of worth and being AND/OR brokenness and purposelessness when we worship. That's because as we worship, there's an almost immediate feedback sense that we're living and doing the action verb we were meant to do. Or not. When we feel broken in worship, we are recognizing that we've been straying from our purpose. This is a dumb analogy, but I bet a zebra would feel pretty lousy about itself if it tried to play basketball. It's a zebra, it's meant to run around in a harem (zebra word for 'pack' or 'flock') and hang out eating grass, not drill threes and throw down.

Worship is a necessary, life-sustaining event to be practiced, a time in the midst of our earthly lives to remind ourselves of that original creation purpose. The foreshadowing promise we get from Revelation is that's what we'll do in Heaven: worship (Rev 7: 9-17). If that's how the Lord wants it in Glory, then I think we ought to try and practice up as much as possible down here.

This new song by Hillsong (after the singer's testimony) has some great lyrics that speak well to those times when we should worship..."...in every season..." All those seasons we go through in life (Ecclesiastes 3, or just listen to the Byrds), THAT is the time to worship. There are times that it will be easy to worship. There will be times that are difficult, times when we'll feel scared or angry or intimidated by the thought of worship. But I really think we should do it, regardless of what we're facing at the moment in life. This video is a really solid testimony and an encouragement to worship even in the face of tragedy and loss. It's very real. The lyrics in the song speak right to the issue of when to worship. The song follows the testimony.