Worship with Gladness

“Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭100:2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Gladness means to be pleased or delighted in something according to Websters dictionary. How beautiful it is when we worship our king with a posture of delight in Him. We can outwardly practice our gratitude towards Him when we worship Him in song. We can show we are glad and pleased with who He is to us. Our refuge. Majesty. King of kings. Lord of lords. Our savior, healer, comforter, friend. He is our living God. Our loving Father! And He is in His righteous place when we make Him the king of our hearts! The center of it all and at the forefront of this life here on earth.

How do we worship with gladness when we really don’t feel like it? Well, when I don’t really feel like praying or singing (cause you know, life gets hard, redundant, same old same old, new day, same problems…blah blah) I go back to basics. I will say the Our Father. I sometimes sing the Our Father as I learned in my childhood. It’s so comforting to say the prayers and sing the songs we learn in our early days. This one…the Our Father, is how Jesus taught the disciples to pray and how He teaches us to pray through His word. We acknowledge Him. We bless His name. We pray for His will here on earth. We pray for our daily needs. We ask for forgiveness as we forgive. We ask to not be tempted. We ask to be delivered. We acknowledge that His Kingdom reigns forever:

“In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:9–13‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

No matter what we are going through, and when we don’t know what to say or how to praise, we can return to the basics and simply pray and sing the Lord’s Prayer to recenter our mind and heart on Him, the one true God who gave us the gift of Jesus so we are redeemed and forgiven! That’s enough to praise and worship Him with gladness.

Father thank you for teaching how us to pray and giving us a voice and the freedom to worship you and sing your praises! Thank you for this day and your ongoing revelation through your word with reminders we need in each season to get us through. I love you. Amen!

Illustrations by Haley Harmening

Edited by Rachel Harmening