How much do you rely on your spiritual life to “make” God love you?

How much do you rely on your worship, or your prayers, to earn God’s favor?

To put it another way, what happens when you can’t sing? Or when your prayer is just a silent desperation?

Sometimes, life is just too much, and it’s just too difficult to sing the songs, or to engage in your typical practices.

When that happens, listen to the voices that show up in your head; watch what tapes start to play: it’s entirely possible that what you will hear in that moment is some version of, “God is not pleased with you right now because you are not worshiping/praying/serving/etc.”

(This is a paraphrased, polite version of what they might sound like.)

But worship and prayer and other spiritual activities are never, EVER meant to “get God to love you”; He JUST LOVES YOU.

The thing that your spiritual efforts and disciplines are supposed to do is to open up space in your heart and soul in which God can dwell, to widen the conduit through which grace and Spirit can flow.

So when you don’t—or can’t—sing, don’t fall into the trap of self-condemnation. The voices that tell you that “God only likes you” if you somehow “perform” spiritually are not true, and a lie.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”, indeed.