Have you ever tried to convince someone to love something? It is not a task that typically delivers results. Why? Well, that is not how falling in love usually works. As much as you try to talk up a person, a delicious meal, a beautiful location, a captivating movie, or a skilled athlete, those who have not seen or do not know this thing cannot share your love for it in the same way. We need to behold things for ourselves to fall in love with them.  

Sometimes, when it comes to worship and love of God, we approach our hearts or the hearts of those we are shepherding with pleas and stern commands. We implore people to worship God by saying things like this: “God is God! You are his creation. Your proper response is to worship … so come on, worship him! God is seeking people to worship him. Do you have better things to do? Your job is to be a worshiper.” 

While there are certainly instances of this method being effective, by and large, this approach is traveling upstream. I have found that telling people to summon within themselves the energy to worship God to be exhausting. The more well-traveled road comes by beholding him.   

In Psalm 46, after detailing the constancy of the presence of the Lord as a fortress in the midst of trouble, the psalmist implores the readers, “Come, behold the works of the Lord!” What is the task of those reading the psalm? He writes, “Be still, and know that I am God.” The psalmist stirs the affections of the reader to the Lord by asking them not to summon the energy and excitement within themselves but to simply behold him, to look at him and what he has done.   

God’s Word encourages us to meditate deeply on who it is we are worshiping and to drink slowly from the well of who he is. Is not this what the psalmist means when he writes, “Taste and see that the Lord is good”? 

Sometimes we think that to worship or love God more fully, we must do more and get ourselves more excited. What can I add to my life to make me love God more? More Bible reading, more serving, more knowledge, louder music, longer worship times. Try harder. But what if the deepening of our worship and love for God comes with doing more with less? When in your life do you simply pause to be still and dwell on our God? His beauty. His character. His glory. His mighty acts of salvation for you. He is a well that will not run dry.  

Whether we are shepherding our own hearts or the hearts of others, beholding the glory and works of the Lord changes our hearts from cold and indifferent to warm and passionate. As Pastor Dane Ortlund writes in his book Deeper, “We cannot crowbar our way into change. We can only be melted.” Look, behold, and linger on our God­—how he loves you, what he has done for you, and what he thinks of you. Come, behold him.   

Alex Monseth [FLS senior] is the worship leader at Hope Lutheran, Minneapolis.