Worship as a prelude to Joy

Practicing mindful gratitude to find our passion

“I want to discover what I’m truly passionate about.” “I don’t think I really enjoy my job and I just don’t know what I love or what will make me happy?” These are common questions in coaching which also got me to dig into what it means to be passionate about something and why we struggle to know what we really like or what we really want?

Just this morning I read a piece written by Nicky Gumble where he concluded that “Worship is the consummation of joy – our joy is not complete until it is expressed in worship”. This was of course in a spiritual context, but this got me thinking about happiness and passion (or joy if you like). In our pursuit to achieve happiness, passion or joy, we perhaps forget that we need to allow ourselves to feel and to actually experience … joy, creativity, playfulness, lightness… in order to finally experience true happiness.

In a world that often dictates what we need to do to be successful – reach deadlines, earn money, be efficient, I wonder if we somehow forget that to feel passionate and engaged in our work we actually need the opportunity to experience and feel the joy and pleasure we can experience in it.

Perhaps the problem is not that we don’t know what we’re passionate about but that we no longer making room to feel passion.

How would we feel if we spent time “worshipping” more? What if we drove to work singing out loud? Rang the praises of our colleagues, boss or clients? Gave ourselves room to be silly creative like we did when we were children and built sandcastles or made up stories just for the pleasure of it?

Are you ready to make room in your life for some silliness and gratefulness?