In worship a person gives to the Lord all of the conflicts, struggles, and disappointments that affect his or her life. Leaving them in the Father’s hands, the worshiper focuses attention on the power and majesty of God. As we worship, the brokenness of our lives begins to be healed.
People have basic needs which can be met in worship. Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O God, and our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee.” In the depths of our nature, we have certain conscious needs which must be met. There are hungers of the human heart to be satisfied. These psychological necessities have been approached in various ways. Here is one attempt to express mankind’s conscious need for worship.
1. The Sense of Finiteness Seeks the Infinite. In worship people seek completion—communion with “ultimate being.” Sensing our limitations, we go in search for the rest of ourselves. The psalmist said, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. (Ps. 8:1, 3–5)
2. The Sense of Mystery Seeks Understanding. People stand in need of knowledge. We approach God as the source of all knowledge. This act of communion may be spoken of as worshipful problem solving. Paul exclaimed, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Rom. 11:33). Again, he prayed that his fellow Christians might “have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:18–19).
3. The Sense of Insecurity Seeks Refuge. In an age of uprootedness, people realize their need for refuge and stability. With the psalmist, we find ourselves saying, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (46:1).
4. The Sense of Loneliness Seeks Companionship with God. In their estrangement and lostness, people feel the need to be loved. Worship is the search for this love that alone can satisfy our loneliness. Job cried, “If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling!” (Job 23:3). In genuine worship, a person comes ultimately to experience personal companionship with God. “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (42:5).
5. The Sense of Human Belongingness Seeks Mutual Fellowship with Other Worshipers. The children of Israel sang a song of ascent going up to the temple, “I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord” (Ps. 122:1). In worship the early church felt itself to be one body in Christ. Joined and knit together in Christ, each believer worked to contribute his or her part in building up the body in the love of Christ (Eph. 4:1, 4–6, 16). It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly for fellowship in worship.
6. The Sense of Guilt Seeks Forgiveness and Absolution. In worship the soul is laid bare before God. The worshiper acknowledges his or her guilt and pleads for cleansing. David cried out, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Ps. 51:1, 4, 10)
The more real a person’s sense of guilt, the more necessity there is for confession and dependence upon the atoning grace of God.
7. The Sense of Anxiety Seeks for Peace. Anxiety is a normal experience of human beings in their finiteness. In this deep threat of nonbeing, a person seeks in worship the courage to become his or her true self. As emotional tensions build up, the individual seeks release from them in worship, the deepest of all emotional experiences. This emotional experience can reach to the depths of a person’s need for rest and peace. In great distress the psalmist prayed, As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (Ps. 42:1, 11)
8. The Sense of Meaninglessness Seeks Purpose and Fulfillment. The search for meaning is perhaps the deepest quest of modern men and women. In the depth of his or her soul a person realizes that he or she was created for a purpose. In the midst of life’s harassment, the believer affirms, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). The search for meaning finds its deepest significance in the will to worship.
9. The Sense of Brokenness Seeks Healing. God’s people cannot grapple with the enemies of righteousness in the real world without becoming broken and bruised. In a broken world, the believer seeks to be made whole. And as Tournier has said, this can happen only as God becomes incarnate in us through the Holy Spirit. Isaiah writes, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (42:3).
10. A Sense of Grief Seeks Comfort. A person’s innumerable losses leave him or her with feelings of emptiness. Human beings grieve over their losses. “ ‘Comfort my people,’ says your God” (Isa. 40:1). In the worship of the living Lord who overcame all grief and loss, the Christian hears the words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.… Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:1, 27).
Another has summarized human psychological needs in the area of religious experience as follows: the need to find fulfillment, to make life useful, to find great moments of inspiration, to have a real encounter with another person, to know one’s own identity, and to find superlative significance in a person, Jesus Christ, the ultimate meaning of life. These feelings of need are evidences of the presence of God, sure signs of his address to us.