Of all the promises in the Bible, I think Psalm 37:4-6 is my favorite.

    Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
    Psalm 37:4-6 (NIV)

As a worship leader, I want my “cause” to flourish. That is, I want to be able to lead people to worship the Lord in the services I help with – every time we meet. I want them to experience a personal encounter with Jesus as if He were in the room with us. However, I sometimes get too caught up in that aspect of worship – and I end up focusing on the crowd rather than the Lord. Worse than that, I want to be the one to do this. I want to be the one people come to after the service and say, “That worship REALLY moved me. You are SO awesome, Dave. Wow – how do you do it every week?” Even as I type it, I know how ridiculous that sounds.

I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this; I too often delight in ME, rather than in the Lord. I have what some people would call the “artistic temperament” – meaning that I get very protective of the things I do through music, take it personally when things don’t go as I had imagined they would, become defensive when people suggest improvements to my style, and generally desire to be a “rock star” with hordes of adoring fans (in the church, of course) and being looked up to as an influential person for the Lord.

The really funny thing is that while I secretly desire these things for myself, I am quick to scorn others who I see doing the same things. Yup, I’m a basket case at times.

I guess the reason I like Psalm 37 so much is that I don’t understand it. Sure, I’ve read the commentaries, studied the word roots, browsed the Christian bookshelves on the topic – but it is still a mystery to me. I think it comes down to the fact that when I think about the “desires of my heart,” I still see way too many areas where sin is the dominating factor, not the Lord. Because of this, I really don’t want the Lord to give me the desires of my heart – because I know my heart – and it isn’t pretty sometimes.

I’ve tried to focus on the first part of the verse – the “delighting in the Lord” part, and let the desire thing come about in its own way. The trouble is, I have to be honest with myself and confess that there are things I regularly delight in more than God. God has his time in my life, as part of my schedule. The rest is “Dave time.” I don’t always delight in the Lord. I’m not even sure what that would feel like.

I decided to file this rambling thought under both “Worship” and “The Emerging Church” categories because I think it speaks of what many in the EC world consider to be an element lacking in the “institutional” church. I’ve read many EC articles which are critical of the “fake-ness” of the institutional church. I’ve talked to young adults who don’t like to do things “just because that’s how we’ve always done them.” I’ve even felt in my own heart a sadness when I see large crowds at worship conferences soaking up every word spoken to them by the keynote speaker and celebrity worship leaders because they want to be successful like they are. (But, as I’ve said before, I would LOVE to be that keynote speaker or celebrity worship leader and have people soaking up my words.)

So, yes, I feel sadness when I see people trying to emulate other people in order to better their service to the Lord, and I feel jealousy because I want to be the person people want to emulate. I think this is a dangerous motivation – and I confess it openly. I also think that it can be a primary motivation in the EC if we’re not careful. If you start a church out of a quest to be more authentic, more real, more relevant – you’re going to have to deal with this issue, too, because you have already made up your mind and delivered judgment on your current church as being un-authentic, less real, and less relevant.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe that planting churches is a great way (if not the best way) to expand the influence of The Church in this world. We just need to keep our motivation in check.

I’m afraid I don’t exactly have an answer for you, or a way to wrap this up in to a nice, neat mini-sermon on worship and delighting in the Lord. What I do know, however, is that it is better to delight in God than in man, and it is better to find your worth in the Lord than in the eyes of men. I am holding out hope that when the Lord finally gives me the desires of my heart, they will be truly His, and it will blow me away. I may have to wait for Heaven to experience that fully – but I pray that I make progress toward that here on earth, a little each day. And maybe God will make my righteousness “shine like the dawn,” and the justice of my cause “like the noonday sun.” But that will only happen when my righteousness and causes are the Lord’s. It’s gonna take a miracle – but I believe in miracles.

Come quickly, Lord!