Worship & Prayer

There is so much about prayer that i don't understand at times. Then there are other times that pieces begin to fit together that didn't fit before. For instance the connection between prayer and worship. Years ago when i was in high school Scott Laird, the worship leader at my church, made a comment about how they were connected. He mentioned how many times when we worship God we are attracted to the worship by the beat, the rhythm, and the tune. However we speak the words even when we don't pay attention to what those words are saying. Part of Scott's point was that we need to pay attention to the words of what we are singing to make sure that what we are saying is correct and Biblical. The other point that he made is that when we sing something, just because we aren't paying attention doesn't mean that God isn't. He takes it seriously and will act on what we say. There are times when things come up in our lives that we are dumbfounded about. We have no idea what's going on, but when we ask God about it saying that we never wanted this, He reminds us that we most certainly did. When we sang that we were laying it all down, or that we are giving it all to Him, or that we want more of Him, even though we may have seen it more as just a song, He sees it just as it is. A message to Him. A prayer. A promise. When we sing something, there is so much more to it than just a song, and we fail to see that many times.

This past weekend i was thinking about worship and music and the structure of that worship. I was thinking about the structure of the a worship song. The main focus / basis / core / center of the worship is in the chorus. It defines the direction and movement of the whole song. Meanwhile, the verses work off of the chorus to define it more and give it substance and definition. The chorus acts as the trunk of the tree and the verses are the branches. The verses expand / expound as the chorus leads.

As i was thinking about that structure of worship as well as the parallel between worship and prayer, i realized that in the struggles that i have with praying, that structure may be a big benefit. If instead of jumping from one thing to another in my prayer i can have one focus that i start with and then define and expound upon it in "verses". Thereby my attention is less likely to drift into completely off areas. I am more likely to stay on task and focused, and the prayer itself becomes more... (i can't think of the right way to finish this) complete, purposeful, structured, beneficial...

Image from Petirrojo used under cc license.