I have a secret weapon that has accelerated my personal growth. It is also responsible for the majority of the healing in my life—healing from an eating disorder, from trauma, from sexual assault, from despair. My heart doesn’t always feel encouraged, or strong, but there’s a tool I use to activate peace in my heart, and it has been the cornerstone of my personal development journey.
It’s free, it’s accessible all the time and it brings me out of dark places. It has encouraged my heart at moments I felt hopeless. It helps me not give into overwhelm, fear or insecurity. It is powerful beyond measure, and sometimes only takes two minutes of engagement to see a change.
It’s worship music.
Tolstoy said that “music is the shorthand of emotion.” It makes sense, for music has moved my soul through deep states of emotion. It takes me deep, walks me through healing, gives me hope and then delivers me into a transformed state of joy. As a little girl I always loved Jesus songs. Sunday School was a highlight of the week for me. The songs were catchy and positive. This Little Light of Mine was my favorite. I loved it so much I could never understand why I wouldn’t “let it shine.”
Eventually though, I started “hiding it under a bushel.” Worried about what people think of me, I stopped listening to worship music as a young adult and I watered down my faith, as not to be offensive to anyone else. I thought it made me too nerdy, too religious and too different. Thankfully, God never gave up pulling on the strings of my heart. He broke through my pride, chased after me, and pulled me up when I hit my rock bottom.
It took me a long time and a lot of pain to get out of the do-it-all-on-your-own and prove-yourself life I was living. Eventually, with the transformation that came after hitting rock bottom, I finally found the courage to stop caring about what people think of me and start listening again to what made my heart come alive. I am most alive when I am connecting with God, and I feel most connected when I am worshipping. There nothing more salvaging to my soul than the words of praise.
Before you assume that I am musical or vocally talented, let me tell you I am not. I can’t read music and doing karaoke is my worst nightmare. But when I hear a worship song that speaks to me, my being speaks back and I cannot help but add my voice.
Worshiping well isn’t about singing well. It doesn’t have to be about music at all actually. There are many ways to worship, but for the sake of this blog post, the ultimate playlist of worship songs to encourage your heart, we are talking about worship songs.
What is worship music?
Contemporary worship music, also known as praise and worship music, is a defined genre of Christian music used in contemporary worship. For me, it is music that brings my spirit closer to God. It fills the crevices of my mind with truth and it helps me meditate on the character of God and on His unfathomable love for me.
For me, someone without a musical bone in her body, worship fills me. I breath out praise, I breath in peace. And peace is the foundational building block for all transformative work that happens in our lives. In the development of confidence, courage and self-worth, peace is the cornerstone. The more praise I give, the more peace I feel.
How do I use worship music in my daily life?
Most people think of worship music, and they think Sunday mornings at church. Styles and preferences can be quite varied, from conservative and traditional to pentecostal and spontaneous. My personal preference is the later, more modern version of worship, though traditional hymns do always move my soul in a special way.
Worship goes beyond Sunday. For me, the power of worship music in my life is that it is a daily part of my life. It bookends my days. When I wake, I turn on a few of my favorite songs as I do the morning kitchen routine of packing my husbands lunch, getting the kids breakfast. I start my runs with worship music. It calms my body and I’ve found nothing more invigorating than moving my body at the same time that I am moving my spirit. For me, twenty minutes of worship while working out transforms me mid-day and fills me with strength and perspective, giving me some of my biggest mental breakthroughs. When I end my workouts, I feel the euphoria of post-exercise endorphins and I feel closer to God. I listen to worship whenever I experience midday funks. Typically, with little children, this manifests late afternoon, before dinner. Worship in the background infuses me with more patience, hope and love for my children.
Though it can feel like a quick fix, I like to think about it as a weapon. (That said, many times it is a quick fix. It is a shift that allows my mind to be free from the anxiety, darkness or exhaustion it feels and it lifts my spirit almost instantaneously. There is divine power in hearing and dwelling on, and then singing the praises and truth of God.)
If I’m ever feeling anxious, I turn on worship.
If I am in a bad mood, I turn on worship.
If I want to break the chains of fear, I turn on worship.
If I want to start my day well, I turn on worship.
If I want to understand something better about how God sees me, I turn on worship.
If I want to believe in freedom and full healing, I turn on worship.
If I want more patience with my children, I turn on worship.
If I want to detox jealousy or comparison, I turn on worship.
If I want to step into an abundance mindset, I turn on worship.
If I want to feel like I have purpose, I turn on worship.
If I want to remember that God is for me, not against me, I turn on worship.
If I want to have confidence in my big dreams, I turn on worship.
If I want to boost my soul with joy, I turn on worship.
Why is worship music important to personal development?
I used to be embarrassed to let people know about the central role of worship in my life. When I first starting dating my husband, I was worried he wouldn’t like how much I needed to have worship music on. He was a Christian, so I knew he wouldn’t be offended by it, but it still made me nervous to be vulnerable about the real role of worship in my life. It felt so nerdy, and so weak. But I am weak. We all are. I need worship because I need God. I need to be close to Him, I need His strength and I need His truth. Worship connects me and fills me in those ways. Now my husband knows that worship music plays as the background in our house, and in the mornings, when the kids are both screaming at the same time that the dog is barking at a squirrel, I can see him smile at me, happy that we have a peaceful way to process everyday life without losing focus on what matters. (That said, as equally as I love worship music, you will also hear hip hop and reggeaton pumping through our walls).
I’m writing about worship and personal development because to me, a Christian life coach, they are interdependent upon one another. Over the past few years I have received countless messages from podcast listeners, book readers and coaching clients wanting to know how I really found freedom from my anxiety, my eating disorder, my broken life. I’ve done therapy, coaching, journaling work and have read thousands of books. I have gone on retreats, gotten prayer, fasted and done cleanses. Those things are all good, but the single most powerful factor to my breakthroughs in my personal growth has been worship.
People report being impatient in their personal growth, wanting to move through the transformation faster than comes naturally. I get it. It’s something I used to struggle with too. For ten years while I held onto my eating disorder, I wanted to change, I knew how to change, but I wasn’t happy with the speed at which I was changing, so I would get overwhelmed with the process and just give up.
Worship, when it comes to personal development, is my secret weapon.
It gives me the words and song to repeat truth from my mind to the depths of my soul. It is the method through which I meditate on the changes God is doing in me. It is how I relinquish the transforming power to God and how I get to experience freedom. It’s how I let Jesus come into my heart daily. He comes in and he rains down the honey of Heaven. It is healing honey and it pours down over my mind and my heart, renewing my life lavishly.
This happens not with one time singing. It happens with repetition, which is why worship is such an integral part of my daily life. Recently a client asked me why she had such a hard time really changing, even though she knew what she needed to do and even though she had invited God into the process of change. She told me that she must be doing something wrong. She could see that I had walked something similar, and that I had changed.
What she didn’t know was that to change in that one way, it took me months, years even, of rewiring the neuropathways of my brain. Even now, when I am wrestling with a new concept and am being pruned from an old, toxic thought still lodged in my brain, I have to lean in hard. For me that means repetition. Lots of it. Typically I will feel especially drawn to a worship song, sometimes just one part of a worship song. And then I will listen to that song, or part of it, for hours, for days, for weeks. The song never gets old. Each repeat of it deepens the grooves of the new neuropathways in my brain. This is how I rewrite my brain with truth.
Just this week on the treadmill I found healing and hope in a the second half of a new-to-me worship song. I have proceeded to spend over two hours running, listening to the same few minutes of that song over and over. Sounds boring, but it is anything but. It sweeps my mind away elsewhere and it’s like I can witness the miracle God is working in my brain structure.
What are the best worship songs to encourage your heart?
Reckless Love, Bethel Music
My favorite section: 6:45-9:45
Tremble, Bethel Music
Catch the Wind (Spontaneous Worship), Bethel Music
Do It Again, Elevation Worship
Take Courage My Heart, Kristene DiMarco
Good, Good Father, Chris Tomlin
Oceans (Where My Feet May Fail), Hillsong United
Here As In Heaven, Elevation Worship
King of my Heart, Bethel Music
No Longer Slaves, Bethel Music
New Wine, Hillsong Worship
Worthy, Elevation Worship
Oh How He Loves, Bethel Music
Power, Elevation Worship
Great Are You Lord, Bethel Worship
My favorite section: 4:13-6:00
Why I love it: It reminds me that all I am comes from God. I need no fear or worry about whether or not I am good enough. Instead, all I need to do is pour out my praise to He who made me. It’s His breath in my lungs, so I pour out my praise and I feel accepted and loved.
The more you worship, the more joy your life will have.
As already mentioned, worship doesn’t have to be in song. We can live a lifestyle of worship. We live a lifestyle of worship by giving your heart to all you do, both small and large, every day. As Paul wrote in Romans 12:1-2 (MSG), “So here’s what I want you to do, Gold helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and your walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.
We also worship God in our daily spirit and attitude. When you live in an attitude of gratitude, or with an attitude of praise, you are worshiping God and acknowledging His goodness. Psalm 106:1 commands us, Praise the Lord! Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever.
For me, the easiest way to live with daily gratitude and praise is through gratitude journaling. By simply starting my day by writing out what I’m thankful for, and finishing my day with the same practice, I am positioning myself to live in accordance to Psalm 106:1.
Ultimately, it’s important to remember that there is no wrong way to worship God, as long as what you do is done with the intention of pleasing Him. Here are a few other ways to worship to help you see all of the ways you can walk in joy as you worship with your lifestyle: prayer journaling, gratitude journaling, dancing, encouraging others, connecting with nature, laughing with children, engaging your creativity, spending time in scripture, sing praises, play music, volunteer, prioritizing your quiet time with God, giving generously, tithing, renewing your mind (managing your mindset and dwelling on truth), serving others, not complaining, caring for your body, and more.
As for me, no more light under the bushel. No, I’m gonna let it shine. I’m gonna take this light all over the world, and I’m gonna let it shine. The world needs truth and it needs hope, I’m gonna let it shine. Come on and shine, shine, along with me. The more we worship, the more we shine, come on and worship with me.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
I’m gonna take this light all over the world.
And I’m gonna let it shine.
I’m gonna take this light all over the world.
And I’m gonna let it shine.
I’m gonna take this light all over the world.
And I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Want to understand more about how God thinks you’re wonderful (and then how to really believe it?) Listen to episode #308 of The Confidence Podcast by clicking here.
Ready to detox your self-doubt and insecurity for good, in a Biblical way? Download my free, 5-Day Insecurity Detox Devotional by clicking here.
