The Kind of Worship That Angels Long To Look Into

Something’s been happening in me this past week. It’s like something’s been unlocked and I’m suddenly seeing a lot more angels than I used to.

Guard angels, warring angels, worship angels. All of a sudden I’m seeing them all around my home, and they all look + dress different according to their roles.

Angels are God’s creation just like us. They are sent by God to do His work + partner with + minister to us. Together with them, we worship the one true God. I don’t worship angels, and I don’t chase after them. Angels, as well as all other heavenly encounters, point us back to the Source — God our loving Abba.

Being allowed to see the angels has shown me something about worship, and I want to share that with you today.

I pray that what I’m about to share will awaken your heart to the wonder of God’s love for you, and inspire you to new depths of intimacy with the One who loves you so.

Angels worship God all the time.

Sometimes they worship with their voices, sometimes with music, and sometimes in silence, with hearts so full of love + adoration that they spill over and float up like clouds of sweet incense before His Great Throne.

They never stop beholding Him (some in greater part than others), and therefore their hearts never cease to spontaneously radiate worship in response to His beauty + glory.

Their songs are clear, beautiful, perfect. Sophisticated yet totally without pretense. There’s not a discordant note in all their harmonies, not one out of beat.

God loves it. Their hearts are clean, pure, without sin or weakness.

And then I see myself next to their pure heavenly glory — I am small, inadequate, broken, and so so dirty.

I feel so human, and I feel it like it’s a dirty word.

But then! As I lift my heart in the simplest song to my God, I see the strangest thing — all the angels stop what they’re doing, gather around me, and gaze in curiosity + wonder.

They wonder:

• How does God love this wee, weak little thing so much? There’s so little of her (I’m pretty tall in human terms, but really small amongst them), and there’s so much of His love. It’s disproportionate, and yet He doesn’t feel like it’s a waste. How/Why does He love her this much?
• How does she worship like this while she’s still stuck in pain, brokenness, sin? How can she, a fallen human, worship like the angels?
• God stops our perfect singing for her imperfect one. We’re curious to see what He sees that’s so captivating.

Like the nightingale, I am plain next to the angels’ iridescence. As with the nightingale, many of my songs come in the darkest nights of my soul. But like the nightingale is beautiful to me, so I am entrancing to God.

And this, dear beloved one, is the reality of worship.

These are the two very different, yet equally wonderful, types of worship:

1. There are times when we need to still our hearts + press in. We get silent, hear heaven’s worship, and then flow along with it — that’s how we ascend into high + deep worship.
2. But there are times when our hearts are all kinds of broken. In those times, it is the angels who are silenced so all of heaven can watch in wonder as Almighty God stoops down + inclines His ear.

He stops all of heaven’s consummate melodies to hear your single broken hallelujah.

And then He restores you so that you get elevated to that deeper worship #1.

Here is Love. This is grace. These are things the angels long to look into.

And dear one? It’s all for you + me.