A Heart of Worship

"A Heart of Worship" originally appeared in the June 2025 "Outdoors" issue of COMO Magazine.

What do you really, truly want?

What does your heart really, genuinely want?

Last summer I mentioned that during my next time of silence and solitude, I was going to spend time with this question. And I did. I wrote the question in my journal and took it with me on vacation to the Island of Isla Mujeres in the Gulf of Mexico.

I found myself in times of solitude and silence daily, mostly while sitting on a rock with the ocean water splashing on my legs. Or while discovering seashells buried in the sand behind our Airbnb.

When I returned home, I found the experience hard to describe. It was a vacation but felt more like a retreat. It was intensely spiritual, yet not in the way you might think. It felt like worship.

The beginnings of five statements began to take shape related to what my heart was truly seeking.

More recently, I have reflected on that time and been reminded of a gospel story in John 12: the story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet in worship.

The story takes place just a few weeks before Jesus’ crucifixion. He has returned to the Jerusalem area for the Passover feast. Two stories are being built as he comes to this juncture. On the one hand, a growing number of people are praising Jesus. His raising Lazarus from the dead in chapter 11 has brought a lot of attention. On the other hand, the authorities are increasingly determined to stop him. His popularity had become a problem.

Yet in this space, in the town of Bethany, Jesus gathered with his friends for dinner. Martha served, Lazarus reclined with him at the table, and Mary took a pound of rare and expensive perfume and anointed his feet and wiped them with her hair.

Mary took the most precious thing she possessed and spent it all on Jesus.

Amidst the tension, Mary performs an elaborate act of worship.

Mary’s actions declared what her heart genuinely wanted — to praise the one who would die for her and set her free. Worship spontaneously flowed out of Mary when she came face to face with Jesus. It was her natural response to who he was and all he had done and would do for her.

Jesus affirms Mary’s decision. He knew who he was. He knew his worth. He was about to die, and the focus of Mary’s worship should be on him.

Mary’s response to Jesus was an act of vulnerability, strength, and courage. She chose to be secure in their relationship and expressive in her actions.

Like Mary, we were created to pour out our hearts in worship to Jesus.

Six months after being in Isla and drafting the answers to my question, I realized that I saw everything on my list as an act of worship. It came to me as an epiphany! And so, I reworded my list to begin, “My heart truly wants to worship God by …”

As Louie Giglio writes in The Air I Breathe, “It’s like I woke up to the idea of worship only then realizing it was the thing I’d been doing my whole life. Only now, God was prompting me to redirect its flow.”

Worship is our whole life response to God’s greatness and glory. What our hearts genuinely want are to bring glory back to God. That is what we were created for! When we are honest about what our hearts genuinely want, we realize that what is on our hearts is what is on God’s heart as well. Mary wanted to know Christ. And her heart responded in worship.

What does your heart genuinely want?