I ran out of breath leading worship

I lead worship with a lot of energy.

Maybe it’s the African in me. Maybe it’s the extrovert. Maybe it’s the performer. Whatever it is, standing still has never really been my thing.

I love leading with my whole body.

But sometimes, halfway through a song on Sunday, I feel myself getting tired.

I pull back from the microphone. Take a breath. Try to recover before leading the next song.

Sometimes I think about artists who tour for months, performing two-hour shows several nights a week.

The physical endurance required is incredible.

As much as I would love to tour someday, I’ve had to ask myself an uncomfortable question:

Could my body actually do it?

I don’t mean whether I have the voice, the songs, or the calling.

Could I physically sustain it?

That question led me back to something Paul wrote:

I’ve heard that verse countless times.

But I’m not sure I’ve always heard the word bodies.

I think I quietly translated it into something more spiritual:

Offer God your heart.

Offer Him your desires.

Don’t use your body to sin.

All true.

But Paul doesn’t tell us only to offer God our invisible parts. He tells us to offer our bodies.

Our actual bodies.

The bodies that breathe, sleep, eat, move, ache, age, become exhausted, and occasionally run out of breath in the middle of a song.

I used to think my body was simply the instrument I used to worship.

Now I’m wondering if my body is also part of the worship I offer.

That doesn’t mean physical fitness determines whether someone is qualified to lead worship. Thinness isn’t holiness. Health and appearance can become idols just as easily as comfort can.

Our bodies also carry histories, illnesses, limitations, genetics, medications, grief, and circumstances that cannot be reduced to discipline or a number on a scale.

But avoiding shame cannot mean avoiding the question altogether.

If my body belongs to God, then how I care for it cannot be completely disconnected from my worship.

What if going for a walk is worship?

What if lifting weights is worship?

What if going for a run, eating the salad, or putting down the second helping of dessert can become an offering to God?

Not simply because I want to look better.

Not because healthier people are more holy.

Not because God loves me more when I make the “right” choice.

Romans 12 begins somewhere much safer than that:

The offering is a response to mercy—not an attempt to earn it.

Shame says, “Your body makes you unacceptable.”

Worship says, “Because you are already accepted, your body matters.”

Of course, a salad isn’t automatically more spiritual than dessert.

Sometimes receiving dessert with gratitude may be worship.

Sometimes putting it down may be worship.

Sometimes worship looks like movement.

Sometimes it looks like rest.

Sometimes it looks like enjoying what God has given me.

Sometimes it looks like telling an appetite, “You don’t get to lead me.”

The action alone isn’t what makes it worship.

It’s the offering.

It’s taking an ordinary physical choice and saying:

Maybe worship is much more physical than I have allowed it to be.

Maybe the walk counts.

Maybe the weights count.

Maybe the decision nobody sees—made in a kitchen, nowhere near a microphone—can be as much an offering as the song I lead on Sunday.

Because perhaps my body isn’t merely the instrument through which I worship.

My body is (a big 😂) part of the worship I bring.