worship - Barbara Lynn Seibel

October 12, 2025October 11, 2025

Influential Relationships and Their Impact on Worship

When you read the words “influential relationships,” what comes to mind first?

Networking for career advancement?
Healthy living advice?
Political clout?
Other?

Some influential relationships I’ve had include parents, siblings, extended family, friends, coworkers, teachers, counselors and my late spouse.

The level of influence varies, as well as whether it was a positive or negative influence.

By pairing these words with “and their impact on worship,” I hope your thoughts move towards relationships that have helped shape your understanding of spiritual matters.

Today’s study considers the introduction of a king of Israel named Ahab.

As a king, Ahab was at the top of society with the authority to influence an entire nation on many levels.

September 28, 2025September 27, 2025

Why Do We Falter in Our Worship?

I faltered in doing my daily stretching this past week four days in a row.

Along with this, I spent those four days toting around a heavy backpack while at a conference for my work.

When I resumed my stretching routine on the fifth day, my body was extremely tight and less flexible.

I also suffer from DOMS: delayed onset muscle soreness. This is one of the primary reasons I practice a daily stretching routine.

Thus, the consequences of my faltering yielded a cranky low back and stiff joints throughout my body on the sixth day.

I know better, and yet, I still faltered.

But this is a Bible study blog, not a fitness blog.

Still, the example above reveals that there are consequences when we falter in our daily habits.

The study below reveals the consequences of when we falter in our worship.

March 30, 2025March 28, 2025

Can You Spot Conspiracy in Worship?

Trust.

Such a small word that has significant meaning in our lives.

Who do you trust the most?

Have you experienced betrayal from someone you trusted?

Was it a family member, a friend, or a leader in your life who trampled your trust?

Or have you ever betrayed someone else’s trust?

How do our moral failures contribute to making it hard to spot conspiracy in our and other’s worship?

Join me as we study an example from scripture rife with moral failure and trampling of trust within a family.

March 23, 2025March 21, 2025

Deep Sorrow that Led to Worship

As many of you know, I am healing from a deep sorrow since losing my husband by his own choice last July and my earthly father by natural causes last October.

We expected my earthly father’s death. But my husband’s shocked all who knew him.

Thus, the journey of healing I am on is complicated.

I shared part of my experience in my first post back after a six-month break from writing.

Today’s passage was hard for me to work through because it touches on the themes of deep sorrow.

Yet, it also provides an opportunity to learn why the Lord is worthy of our worship, no matter the source of our deep sorrow.

Join me in this study of 2 Samuel 12:15-23 and portions of Psalm 51.

February 2, 2025February 4, 2025

When Easing Back into Worship is Hard

On July 22, 2024, my husband committed suicide.

I am still recovering from the shock and disappointment of that day.

It seems both real and unreal.

Many days I still feel like I’m in a nightmare that I can’t wake up from.

So many questions with few answers.

I did not see this coming.

But God did.

This brings both comfort and anguish to me.

Then, on October 12, 2024, my ninety-year-old father passed.

So, in less than three months, I lost the two most important earthly men in my life.

I knew my dad’s death was near, given he had been in a care facility for over a year in a slow but steady decline.

But to deal with losing both men so close together was not something I ever expected to have to face.

How has this affected my ability to worship God?

July 21, 2024July 20, 2024

Why Did God Choose Gideon?

I have fond memories of the wheat fields in Kansas.

Watching the swaying of the stalks in the wind is quite mesmerizing.

Although I spent time on my grandparent’s farm, I have never harvested wheat.

I recall a picture taken of me with my grandfather on his combine, but I never actually did any farming work.

Why am I talking about harvesting wheat?

It is what Gideon was doing when God called him to lead the Israelites.

What was it about Gideon that made him the right choice?

July 14, 2024July 13, 2024

Resolving Miscommunication in Worship

Have you ever misunderstood another person’s actions?

I know I have.

Conversely, has anyone ever misunderstood your actions?

Yep, I have experienced this too.

These situations can cause brokenness in our interpersonal relationships.

On a much larger scale, it can cause rifts between larger people groups and even nations.

Worse yet, miscommunication has the potential to destroy unity in worship.

Joshua 22 helps us understand the importance of communicating clearly with each other.

June 9, 2024June 8, 2024

Are You Humbly Worshiping?

The picture above shows a stone cross nestled in a quiet woodland scene.

When I searched pixabay.com for an image to represent humility, it came up as an option.

Other words associated with the picture include cross, faith, and religion.

So why did it come up when I searched for the word humility?

What connects these words: cross, faith, religion with humble worship?

May 5, 2024June 22, 2024

Communal Responsibility in Worship

How would you define communal responsibility in worship?

According to Merriam-Webster.com,

A community is defined as a unified body of individuals.
Responsibility involves answering for one’s conduct or obligations.
To worship is to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion a divine being.

So, a communal responsibility in worship could be described as a unified body of individuals answering for each other’s conduct to show great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion to a divine being.

But what does that look like in actual practice for the Israelites in the book of Deuteronomy? And us today?

April 21, 2024April 3, 2024

Removing the Distractions from Worshiping God

Recently I opted to work on my writing at a local cafe.

I thought it would be okay since the cafe had Wi-Fi and many of the research resources I use are now available online.

Plus, several friends of mine who are writers love to work at cafes or shared work spaces.

But it was too distracting for me.

Hearing orders called out, seeing a father play with his son out in the courtyard, and some odd technical difficulties made my writing experience frustrating.

I now know for certain that my home office space is the best place to work on my writing.

This does not mean I never get distracted at home. I do.

But I have more control over my home office space than I do in a public space.

How does this relate to the need to remove distractions from worshiping God?