Worshipping God should feel like having a favorite musician.
Think about it.
You have a favorite band. You love their music. There is that one song you play whenever you are feeling low, and somehow it makes you feel better. When they release a new song, you get excited. If they perform in your city, you attend the concert. You find other people who like the same music, and suddenly there is a community around something you love.
You enjoy talking about the band. You enjoy discussing their songs. And when you see someone wearing their merchandise, you feel a strange excitement. This person likes something you like too.
You like deep-diving into the lives of the band members, what they were going through when they wrote a particular song, what inspired a certain lyric, or what heartbreak gave birth to an album.
Their stories inspire you, bring you comfort when you are down, and sometimes even make you shed a tear in silent support of struggles you never witnessed yourself.
But here is the interesting thing about being a fan.
You do not hate people who listen to different music. Typically.
You do not think less of people who have never heard of your favorite band. You do not spend your day worrying about why they are not listening to the same songs as you.
You simply think, “I like this music. This is my favorite band. Not everyone has to like it.”
A song does not become less beautiful because someone else does not enjoy it.
You wait for the next album. You continue listening to the music. Your relationship with the songs remains untouched.
Even if nobody else in the world liked that band, you would still listen to it.
You are perfectly capable of being the only fan in the room.
That is how devotion should feel. Ideally.
You may talk about God. You may share what you love about Him. You may enjoy being around people who worship the same way you do. But your love for God should not depend on whether everyone else loves Him too.
As long as you are allowed your space, and others are allowed theirs, love can exist peacefully.
As a fan, you buy merchandise. You wear the T-shirt. You put up posters. You collect little things that remind you of the artist because they bring you joy.
Perhaps prayer beads, temples, books, pictures, and rituals are meant to do something similar. They are reminders of someone you love.
And there is another thing I find fascinating.
When you listen to a song you love, it often feels as though the artist is speaking directly to you. Rationally, you know they wrote that song for millions of people. Yet somehow it feels personal.
It feels like they understand something about you.
Many people struggle with God because they think, “Why would God speak to me? I am not special.”
But if you think of God the way you think about your favorite musician, something changes.
The song was not written only for you, yet it still reaches you.
The book was not written only for you, yet a sentence suddenly feels personal.
The prayer was not spoken only for you, yet it comforts something inside you.
Maybe devotion is not about being special.
Maybe devotion is about feeling understood.
And perhaps that is why people keep returning to God, just as they keep returning to their favorite songs.
Not because they are forced to.
But because every time they return, they feel a little less alone.