Internal Over External Wars

Smile On and the other kids working on their
"internal battles" in church while fixing a sandal

I’m perhaps oversensitive to using such a brutal metaphor because people of faith have sometimes let war imagery confuse their ideas. But this topic of internal war has been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks now. Then was added to after a friend recently posted a question about whether we should borrow the holy war idea from Islam and apply it in an internal spiritual sense. Before that my thoughts mostly started from reading a “Modern Worship Wars” article that resonated with my current experiences. I think the phrase “worship wars” often belittles the seriousness of war and violence, but this was redeemed for me a little by the author. The article voiced something for me as someone who feels comfortable with a wide variety of worship styles and music, as a pastor who’s dealt with the friction between worship preferences, but also as someone who feels the difficulty of relating to the place we worship now. The article is centered on how we bring our consumer mentality to all areas of our lives, becoming “American Idol” judges for worship whether “traditional” or “contemporary” or basically for anything else we see someone doing in a spiritual or secular context. The best quote comes at the end:

So the next time you go to church and the music is too loud, or the leader is singing that song you don’t like, go to war. Fight against the sin at work within yourself. Fight against consumerism and disunity. Fight for a grateful heart. Fight for the truth to captivate you in a way music never could. Fight to stand in awe of a mighty God who rescued you and graciously sings over you. Fight the true war of worship.

While actual war brings about horrific crimes, still I think this is an apt comparison because of the seriousness of the internal struggle we face anytime we attempt to worship or surrender our wills to God. This relates very much to life in the US, but also when you find yourself at a worship service where you don’t understand much because of language, you don’t “like” much aesthetically, or feel comfortable with much because of cultural expectations. But still you are there to try and make the effort to let the worship service be about God in your thoughts and approach. The key in any worship of God, whether in your normal pattern or not, is turning your heart to God and giving praise. I feel like my background of learning how to worship in a variety of traditional, liturgical, contemporary, pentecostal, crowded, or personal settings has helped prepare me for this. But it’s still a challenge every week to find what it is in the service or part of the service that can serve as an aid in turning me toward God.

In a similar way I know Christmas comes with so many distractions and the desire to create the perfect atmosphere or moment we’ve felt in the past. But I pray in the moments when we want to check-out, or feel we deserve to be “touched,” or when we just want something the come easily in our tiredness, that we still remember we must continue to fight the war against consumerism and disunity, and fight/pray/surrender for a grateful, captive heart.

--El Padre