This episode is supported in part by the Christian Standard Bible, a translation designed to be faithful to the original text and clear for everyday readers. And we're just grateful for their partnership in helping bring gospel-centered content to families like yours. And to learn more about the CSB, visit csbible.com. Reverence isn't necessarily something that's tied to a music style, that's tied to architecture, that's tied to a denomination, but really it's a acknowledging of God's holiness. It's responding in humility and surrender and faith to who God is and all that He's done.
Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson. And I'm Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today.
Hey, you know, it's been great having some time off, which is not really time off. I mean, the knees are healing. I'm starting to walk. And it's been a little bit relaxing over the last few days, but you know what's really even better? Having time off while still listening to all the great guests that are coming on the show.
Bingo. I can't wait to hear what Cheryl and Laura Story will be discussing today. Laura is the best. We love her.
So, 25 years ago, I prayed what I called. A dangerous prayer, the kind of prayer that resets your life and just. challenges everything that you are. I pray, God, I don't want to be the same person I am this time next year. And Honestly, when I by the time I understood All of the chaos that was going on around me was a direct answer to that prayer.
I thought to myself, girl, that's the dumbest prayer you have ever prayed in your entire life. But when I look back on it, I'm so grateful for the nudge of the Holy Spirit because for the first 15 years of my walk with God, I was focused largely on my benefits as a recipient of God's grace rather than the God who gives grace. Since then, for the last 25 years, what has Happened as a result of that prayer. I have been refocused so that largely. My life is Attuned to God's holiness, his sovereignty, his faithfulness, his bigness, that he is worthy of worship.
Reverence is the foundation of wisdom. It is the framework for relationship. With God, and it is the topic of our conversation today as we talk with Grammy Award-winning worship leader, theologian, and author of the new book, Stand in Awe: How Reverence Transforms Our Worship and Our Lives. Laura Story. Thank you so much for being here with us today.
You're awesome. Thanks so much for having me. I'm glad. I'm very excited to have this conversation with you. And I know that you have been a guest on Family Life Today before, right?
Yes, I've done stuff with Family Life for a while now. I've. Been a stowaway on their marriage cruises a couple times. How do you get stowed away on their cruiser? That's right.
That's always a fun time. But yeah, I remember visiting Little Rock when they were still there, and it's wonderful to be here in Florida with you guys today.
Well, because I want to get to know you a little bit, and I'm sure there are listeners who want to as well. Can you tell us a little bit about your story, how you came to faith in God, and what led you to writing this book? I'll start with my family. I'm married to Martin. We've been married for 22 years.
Yes. And that's been so sweet. And we have four children. My oldest is Josie. We have one girl who's our 13-year-old.
And we have twin 11-year-old boys and an eight-year-old boy.
So teens and preteens. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot. But it's so much fun. And they're really neat kids. And I have two tearing up some green room somewhere behind us.
But I grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina, but moved to Atlanta, Georgia 21 years ago. Martin and I, we'd only been married a year, and I was asked to come on staff at a church there called Perimeter Church. And I've been there ever since, helping with their music ministry.
So what? Led you then to write this book? Like, what led you to devote your gifts and your talents to worshiping God and specifically reverencing Him? Two reasons. One, would be, you know, when I first began working as a I say help with their music.
You know, a lot of a lot of people call that role like the worship leader. I was like the term music minister. That's the term that we used at my church growing up. And music minister, that word minister meaning servant. And it's a great perspective to have when you're in that role.
That your true aim is to serve the congregation. It's not so much that you're the lead singer of the church, you're serving them and facilitating moments of them communing with God. Um, and so when I first started, I uh This is kind of funny. Before I did that, I was in a bluegrass band because I grew up playing upright bass.
Okay. And so I played in a bluegrass band at a Mexican restaurant for like through college. I love it. It was ridiculous.
So when I started at Perimeter, I thought, man, this sounds like a great idea. But I have no idea what I'm doing. And. I began to learn things from whether it's worship books or whatever, but mostly just turning to the scriptures and asking this question. Of how does God want to be worshipped?
So, one of the reasons for the book was just kind of the past 20 years. 20-something years of me. Asking that question and searching the scriptures. But one thing I saw pretty quickly was that worship isn't just this thing we do on Sundays. Yes.
And reverencing God isn't just this thing we do on Sundays, even though Sunday is a big part of that. Reverencing God is also about those other six days of the week. And part of another part of our story, which I've shared with.
some of the family life. People, whenever I've been able to be with them, a big part of our story is within the first two years of our marriage, Martin was diagnosed with a brain tumor. And it really has kind of changed. Everything about our marriage, everything about our family, and more than anything, with his. brain injury that ensued after that tumor.
Just life has looked differently. And as a believer, If you If you began life or marriage with this idea that God exists. to make my life. better, tidier, more manageable. When you have some sort of chronic illness, you'll become frustrated with God pretty quickly if you think He exists to serve us.
Right.
So we have had to really change our perspective about what it means to be a Christian, to say, God, this is not. This is not the story I would have written for my marriage, for my family. But we believe that you're God and we're not. And so we're learning also to revere him. even in just us kind of walking a road that is different than what we expected.
Right.
I think that's so important for people to understand that we are actually promised trials and tribulations in this life, right? We were not promised. To coin a phrase, our best life now, but the better is coming. But more importantly, that our life is to be centralized around the reality of who God is. And it's to reflect his glory and reflect his story.
That means that our stories kind of come under subjection to his. But what does that look like every single day of the week? I know Sunday, I come in and I have my three songs and we're going to stand and we're going to raise our hands. One of my struggles with worship right now is because sometimes those songs are so directed at self and what God does for us and less towards him and his holiness and acknowledging him for who he is that it doesn't even really feel like worship. But we sing those three songs and we check the box off.
I worship God and we go home and we might go back into a trial or a chronic illness or even if we just go back into regular schmegular everyday life, how do we draw the thread from? what I do on Sunday morning into what I'm doing. Every day of the week. Yes. Well, I think you're hitting the nail on the head.
You ask the question, like, so what do people need? What do they need to be singing about God? And also, like, what does God desire us to be singing? And what do people need to be singing? When the Psalms.
You see over and over again the psalmist singing, like, I will exalt the Lord, I will tell of his wondrous deeds. And when you think about a phrase, like, I will tell of God's wondrous deeds. They're not necessarily saying, oh, Psalm 34 would be a good example. You know, I will bless the Lord at all times. He never says, I feel like blessing the Lord at all times.
So oftentimes I'm reminding worship leaders, let's get away from the. I feel so happy towards the Lord right now. And let's focus on the wondrous deeds of God because oftentimes when we're singing about. The things that God has done. In the scriptures, or even just the things he's done in our lives, when we're singing about the ways.
That he's already shown up and provided for us, it really kind of bolsters our faith. It really stirs up within us. the faith we need. To believe him for the things he's yet to do in our lives, yeah, and that's that's a big part of worship. I don't know if this is true for you, but it's super easy for us to let our schedules squeeze in everything except for the person I married.
Oh, yeah. Work, kids, everything competing for our attention, and before you know it, Your marriage has slipped into autopilot. You don't always notice you're drifting apart until it's already happened. And that's exactly why Family Life's Weekend Remember exists. It's a chance to put your marriage back on the calendar and focus on what matters most.
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So I pulled up the scripture and I pulled up Psalm 89:7, and it reads, God is greatly feared in the council of the Holy Ones, more awe-inspiring than all who surround him. Lord God, this is verse 8 now: Lord God of armies, who is strong like you, Lord?
So he's really talking about God. Would you consider this reverence? Oh, yeah. How would you define reverence? That's a great question.
Because a lot of times people think about reverence as like, well, it's a style of music. You know, if you have a drum kit in your sanctuary, there's no way you can be reverence. If you have lights and smoke, you are not worshiping God. Exactly. But how many of us have gone to a To a cathedral that has like the most beautiful pictures and all of that.
But it's basically a museum. Yeah.
So reverence isn't necessarily something that's tied to a music style, that's tied to architecture, that's tied to a denomination. But really, it's an acknowledging of God's holiness. It's responding in humility. And surrender in faith to who God is and all that He's done, and so I. I love the passage you talk about, the fear of the Lord.
A lot of times we don't like to think about God as being someone that we should fear. And ultimately, if I kind of you go to the end of the story, for us believers. Christ has paid the penalty of our sin.
So Hebrews tells us we can approach his throne with boldness and confidence. Yes. But it's not because it's not because God totally mellowed out between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Man, he finally chilled out. Yeah, I mean, you read the book of Revelations and you realize, oh no, he's not mellowed out.
Oh, he is still that consuming fire. But one of the things I love the idea of fearing, one of the things we see constantly in the scriptures. Is when God's people encounter him, you see a lot of falling down.
Okay. Yes. Isn't that you see? There's passages where Joshua sees the Lord and falls down. Isaiah, like, everyone's falling down.
Yes. Yeah, Isaiah is a great example because we have Isaiah 6 where he. He sees God and Isaiah is he's this prophet. Um, who's you know, kind of a big deal? He's a big deal, he's wealthy.
He, yeah, absolutely, he's in, he knows the king who's just died, 100%, and he. He sees the Lord. It's shaking. There's smoke. The robes are filling the temple, all of this.
And his response is, woe is me, I am ruined. Yes. And I remember having one of those I am ruined moments with the Lord. Yeah.
Where. I was 19 years old and I was on a mission trip. And it was a mission trip that I should have, like, I just kind of stumbled into. I was, this is kind of a funny story. I was with this college ministry and all of my friends were like, let's sign up for this trip to Mongolia.
Was that your first mission trip? Oh, yeah. Okay. He's like, that's not what you do. You're not like downtown feeding, like in the soup kitchen.
Yeah, you should have told me. You should have told me that's not what I'm supposed to do for our first mission trip.
So here I am. Oh, so all my friends ended up dropping out.
So it's just me with all these random people that I don't know. And I remember spending the first, we were there for a month. And we could bring like two changes of clothes. We were showing this kind of thing. We're showing the Jesus film on the side of.
These yurts, these tents to nomads in Outer Mongolia. Wow. And I probably spent the first. week of that trip complaining. I mean, just like, oh, I just wish I had a shower.
Oh, I wish wish I you know, I'm I'm just McDonalds. I don't know what I was missing. But all that to say, I remember the day before we left to come back, And the trip leader said to me, like, I know that you're probably, you can't wait to get back. And I said, I don't want to go back. Mm-hmm.
And What had happened is I had experienced The Lord, in such a powerful way, seeing people come to faith, not even understanding the language. that they were hearing seeing the change in their lives, the change in their countenance. And I really had this moment of saying, I'm ruined. Yes. Everything that I did before.
Does it make sense? Yeah.
But but it's like you were saying, even as you were kind of introing this whole topic. When you truly have that kind of encounter with the Lord, like the encounter that we see in the scriptures, revering God for who He is and all that He's done. It is impossible to walk away. not changed forever. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And it's impossible to not carry it into your everyday experiences, right? Because you're always reminded of who it is that you are serving and who it is, who is your king, not just your king, but your father to imagine that this great big God who thinks a thing and it is so, who is worthy, who is so worthy of adoration that right now, as you and I are sitting here, there are angels flying around his throne crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, right? That that God wants an intimate relationship. With you, that he tabernacles with us and wants relationship with us.
Of course, I would want to reverence him because that's what Jesus said. The Lord desires for those that worship him to worship him in spirit and in truth. Right.
We carry the spirit of God and we carry the truth of God with us every single day. And might I add that that one moment was just that one moment then. I'm sure that there have been many other moments since then. Right.
So when you think back over your experience with the awe of God and with reverencing God, what was a moment that other than the Mongolian moment, right? That really stands out as pivotal to you as a worship leader and as a wife? When I think about. You know, just the awe of the Lord. I think about it, we've gotten to travel a good bit with music and doing different things.
I remember specifically being in Northern Ireland for a songwriting retreat. I know that sounds like I was really suffering for the Lord there. I know. I'm at a retreat. I'm in Northern Ireland.
Exactly. I mean, I wish I could see my motives were pure for, you know, I just love the Lord. I want to write songs about it. No, but going to Ireland, that's so bad. It was pretty cool.
It was pretty cool. So we're at this cliff, and you're just. in awe. Of what the Lord, it's like you can't even put into words kind of. What you're feeling when you see.
his creation just kind of in a different way than you've ever seen it before. And that's the kind of awe. that I feel like sometimes we lo we've lost. Inner worship. Yes.
Worship. And one of the things in the book that I talk about, I talk about like four different ways that. That sometimes we've kind of gone off course. And I call them, I talk about if reverence is the road, then there's four ditches we have to kind of be careful of. And one would be, you know, having a casual approach.
To God? What is a casual approach to God? Oh, that's great. I'm glad you asked. Casual isn't necessarily a great word in any relationship.
Right.
If you're single, we're married and we're kind of casual about it. We're kind of casual about it. If you're single and you see, like, I just want a casual, you know, on a dating profile, you're like, nope, I'm not doing that. But casual, you know, I think about one of the churches in Revelation where it talks about: you know, if you are hot or cold, but since you're lukewarm, you know, I want to spit you out of my mouth. Right.
You know, God is. He is too holy and too majestic and too Just valuable. He's too worthy of our whole lives for us to be casual. But the thing that's interesting about this casual approach. Is there was actually a church movement.
I don't know, it's been about fifty years ago. Where There was kind of a new approach. To how to get people to come to church. And the goal was: we really want people, we want to program the entire service to make people feel. comfortable That wasn't Jesus' specialty.
I was like, I don't know if you've read the Gospels. But it's interesting because the Lord used it, and it was fruit that came out of that. But sometimes when you go about something with the right motives, But there's still some unintended consequences.
So, all of a sudden, you're preaching about the love and grace of God. but you're not mentioning, dare I say, God's wrath or the fact that Prior to me having a relationship with the Lord, I was an enemy. I was against him. I was, you know, yeah, I could go deeper there. But so it's basically in order to make people feel comfortable.
At church. They were telling maybe half the story. Just interesting when you think about the good news of the gospel. isn't good news unless you tell the bad news. Absolutely.
It's it's like the person that says, I went to the doctor and I got this treatment, but they don't know what they were cured of. Exactly. Exactly. And you think if I was like to draw a diagram right now and you think about The deeper we see, our desperation and how much we do not deserve to have a relationship with God.
So if you think about a line going down and then you think about another line going up where we're growing in our understanding Of God's holiness and his majesty and his love and all of that. And then you kind of draw between those two across as we are growing in our understanding of how desperately we need the Lord. And how sinful we are, and growing in our understanding of God's goodness, the cross actually gets bigger as that chasm gets bigger. Yes. And so you just realize how desperately we need to understand.
The bad news in order. to marvel at This sweet, amazing grace that God has shown us. You know, it reminds me of when Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, when he said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, right? And poor in spirit are those who recognize how desperately in need of God they are. And then he goes on to say, Theirs is the kingdom of God.
Like God opens up his kingdom to those who recognize that they need his kingdom, that they need him.
Okay, so that was the first stage. Oh, yeah. Being casual. Yes. And then this self-focused.
Yes. Yeah, we could spend the whole rest of the day. Yeah, we really could. One of the things I did in the book, I had a friend of mine help me with this. I said, could you help me come up with.
a survey, a list of questions that people could answer. To try to discern whether their spirituality. Is God focused or self-focused? That was painful. I was like, okay, I'm going to include this in the book, but I don't know, I can't take this more than once because it was just so revealing.
And it kind of goes back to, again, what you were saying towards the beginning. If we're looking to God. to meet Our needs, we will become disappointed and disillusioned. Because what the scriptures actually teach is: if you want to gain your life, you have to lose it. You have to lose it.
And one thing I've asked worship leaders before as they're kind of planning their services, I've said, if someone Showed up at your church. They weren't familiar with church at all, but they showed up at your church. And apart from the sermon, just based on the songs that you sing. Just based on the songs that you've planned for Sunday mornings. Would that person draw the conclusion?
That we exist for God, or that God exists for us. What an amazing question to ask a worship leader. It's for the worship leader, but it's also just for the worshiper. Yes. Man, what is it?
Toby Heath, the I want to talk about me. Yes, yes. We all want to talk about us. And it's like, okay, great. I'm going to be at home talking about myself all the time.
And then I'm going to go to church. And I'm also going to talk about myself all the time. And I want you to talk about me as well. Exactly. Exactly.
And I'm just going to comb the scriptures for all the verses that point to me. And the truth is, of course, the Lord loves us more than we could ever imagine. But you think about. Think about the Lord's Prayer. The disciples are saying, Jesus teaches how to pray.
And he says, Our Father who art in heaven, And he begins with. Howled be thy name? Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And then he moves on to give us this day our daily bread. It's not that he cares any less about providing for our needs, but he knows that for us, we have to start with putting God first, putting his plan above our own, putting his will above our own, putting his glory above our own.
Boy, what a great discussion. And this is just the beginning. And I can't wait for tomorrow because Cheryl's going to have a discussion with Laura's story and we'll continue on this topic. In the meantime, check out the show notes at familylifetoday.com for links to all the resources discussed in today's episode. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
Yeah.
