I know this is an odd question to ask…But how exactly does one worship?
I’m not a “Mary had a little lamb” Christian when it comes to alot of the academic stuff, like theology, or in life-application of verses, which…I suppose is really just the applied continuation of the academic stuff. But when it comes to expressing “worship” I can’t seem to really “get it”, atleast when it comes to what I think of worship, all the singing, dancing, arm waving, eye-closed stuff, shouting amen, praise the Lord, etc. Not that I don’t love him of course, I very much do! I just have a hard time not being…uh…“puritan”?
I’m a very happy, and expressive person, artistic, and talkative, and even singing occasionally - except when it comes to worship, and that bothers me a little. Even at a youthful pentecostal church I used to attend I wasn’t all that into clapping, dancing, and jumping, or running…I felt really awkward…Went to my grandparents Church of Christ (no musical instruments) for a week - spiritually bored to death, and I still felt awkward, especially because I didn’t like the denomination at all. And then went regularly to a Baptist church for a while. I would sing, but I felt supremely fake doing so. It just wasn’t “enough” so to speak, then again I didn’t feel very welcome either. I didn’t go to church all that much as a kid, but I studied Christianity from a very academic point of view - it wasn’t until recently (the past four or five years) that I really got into a deep personal relationship, beyond the realm of what was more or less just Theology.
But in light of this, I don’t really know how to “worship”, I can pray - but I find myself kind of drab and stiff when it comes to certain things. Lately my prayers have been;
“God I want to learn how to have fun with you! I want to be childlike again, where everything was both learning, as well as play!”
“I want to stop the religious, the theological, the separation of sacred from secular, I want to live in to be a real Christian where you are more than just my prayer life, or studies, and where my relationship with you is not just religion with the relationship spliced in.”
“I’m so tired of theology, my facebook page is nothing but theological posts, and I feel like I have such little variety that I am boring even, and have no actual life beyond trying to “learn how to live”.”
“I don’t want to make religion everything about my life, but I also don’t want to make everything about my life “religious”. I want to be genuinely spiritual!”
And…pardon this next one…but I did actually pray this…But I think God might have gotten a giggle out of it…lol
“Father! If I fart I want it to be spiritual!”
But I suppose what I’m trying to say is, even as a Universalist, I find it difficult to worship God in a childlike way, or expressively. Anyone have any advice? And has anyone had this kind of experience? Or is it just me? lol