Wake up. Coffee. Get kids ready. Go to school. Go to work. Coffee. Do work. Coffee. Get kids. Eat something. Drive kids. Do more work. Practice. Coffee. Dinner. Kids in bed. Say hello to spouse. Do more work. Slightly clean something. Go to sleep. Repeat.
Your schedule may not match mine, but chances are you could easily fill in your own terms around all those much needed coffee breaks. With our lives so easily scheduled for us, where do we find time to not just worship alongside our churches but to privately worship on our own?
In previous posts we’ve discussed how important it is to be deliberate about spending time with God. This includes time in His Word, in prayer, and in worship. While in principle we know how important our time with God is, in practice it is far too easy for our schedules to push Him aside. As we evaluate our time and what we choose to do with it, let’s look at a couple different ideas of how we can find time to worship on our own.
Schedule Time
Ok, this may seem weird and disingenuous but hear me out for a minute. The church I work at does what we call a “Half Day of Prayer” about once a quarter. This is where we as a staff schedule 3-4 hours to do nothing but pray and worship on our own. We meet together in the morning to check in, share any prayer requests, and then individually we head out to our own personal places of choice to spend time with God. At the end of the designated time we meet back up and share what God put on our heart or what we may have gleaned from that time. The first time we ever did this every single person came back and said it was crazy hard to disconnect from the world and jump right into prayer for hours on end. Most of us had never even spent that much chosen time with God. We found as we kept doing this it became easier, less “weird”, and it has become a great quiet time to worship on our own as well. I have found this practice has begun to creep into my life more than just once a quarter and when it does, it is always refreshing. Try it!
Practice Time
When you’re scheduled to worship on Sunday how do you manage your practice time at home? Do you briefly run through the songs and only stop if there’s new music to learn? One of the main goals of practicing is to become so comfortable with the music that you can truly and skillfully worship on Sunday morning, but this doesn’t mean we can’t worship while preparing for Sunday. For most of us, our worship leaders have purposefully chosen our set lists. The songs are put together for a reason. Reflect on the theme of these 4-5 songs and take a moment to worship the Lord through your practice time.
Any Time
Worship can happen any time and any place, if you let it. There are random nights where the kids are in bed and I happen to walk by my piano. On the occasions where I’ve let myself sit down, I then come to realize it has been an hour before I have gotten up. The hour was better spent worshipping at my poorly tuned piano then watching another episode of Grey’s Anatomy (how are they going to continue without McDreamy?). It doesn’t have to be an hour alone with your instrument. I have friends that say the time they spend singing out to God in their car during their commute is what gets them through the day. I have heard of others who treasure the time they spend in worship as they put their babies to sleep. Hey, I’ve even had worship dance parties break out in my kitchen while washing the dishes. If you let it, personal worship time will present itself to you.
Worshipping on our own is personal. It’s between you and God. Some of us sing, some play an instrument, some write, others paint, and others dance. God has made us unique and, in turn, we worship Him that way. In what ways do you worship? How do you find time to worship God on your own?
Walking Away