According to Merriam-Webster, one of the definitions of worship is “to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion.”

Have you ever been somewhere when someone walks into the room and everything stops? Whether their presence is expected or not, all chatter ceases and every eye turns to look at them? The world does it for celebrities, royalty, and religious leaders all the time.

Well this past Friday, I saw it happen for Jesus, too. And I almost missed it.

I attended a nine-hour worship event for Burn 24-7 this weekend. For those that don’t know, this is an event that consists of non-stop worship and prayer for extended periods of time. A variety of people and worship teams volunteer their time to do one- or two-hour sets. Well, during the second set of the night, there was a moment where the room went completely silent. Like you could have heard a fly sneeze kind of silent. There was no instrument lingering in the background, no one was singing, no one was praying out loud, the speakers weren’t shrieking, and it seemed as though no one was breathing either. IT. WAS. QUIET. You feel me?

My initial reaction was, “Uh oh, they just messed up the flow.” But before I could go any further with that train of thought, I heard the Lord say, “There is worship in the stillness.” Immediately, Psalm 46:10 came to mind.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

I was intrigued, because I had never thought of the stillness as worship. But it is. The “Be still” part of that scripture means to stop striving, stop working, stop worrying, stop being anxious, stop over-thinking, stop doing exactly what I had evidently been doing, and focus on the knowledge of who God is.

Here I was doing some work during worship, because I feel like my creative juices really flow with some worship music in the background. But God didn’t want His worship “just on in the background”, so He used this moment to bring me back to the moment that was before me. And I’m so glad He did. Otherwise… I might not have noticed Him come in and flood the atmosphere with His sweet, sweet love.