Worship has become a solace for me during these past few years.
At times there are just not words. Songs echo the hidden recesses of the heart. They express some of the deepest of human emotion.
Worship is a response to that emotion. It is not denial, but rather a searching for redemption, renewal, hope. It is a war cry against a quickly passing world, and has become an anthem for me.
Hebrews 13:15 says, “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”
The phrase, a “Sacrifice of Praise” took on a depth of meaning these past few years, losing three babies. Growing up we sang a song in church that said- “We bring the sacrifice of praise into the House of the Lord!” It was quite upbeat, repeated over and over with clapping and lots of smiles.
To be honest it didn’t feel like it captured the word sacrifice. It felt a bit too on the surface.
I think of Jesus, the true Sacrifice, echoing the psalms on the Cross.
Jesus answered the hard question of life, “Can we still worship God even when He choses the hardest of paths for us? And when life hands us the impossible tasks of grief and anguish?
Looking back through the Psalms they are full of authentic worship in the midst of painful valleys, even the spaces of seemingly abandonment. Worship acknowledges our emotions and frail humanness, while defying the darkness that pushes in around us. It is a stance that says- “This is not the end.”
The beginning of the Psalms, comes from the story of David, the author of many of them. He was anointed to be King of God’s chosen people as a young man, a simple shepherd boy. He was anointed when another man was still king. Instead of being placed on the throne immediately, he spent time tending sheep and playing the harp for King Saul whom he was to replace. Saul eventually turned on him trying to kill him. David was made to live life on the run, hunted down like a dog for no reason. Cold fields of stars and hard cave floors became his bed. His first promised wife was given to another and his best friend was eventually killed. Twice he was given the opportunity and could have remedied the situation and killed Saul outright. He didn’t.
Instead David accepted the divine timing that kept him weary with no place to call home much less a palace. During this time He cried out to his Lord and God spoke to David to write. From the anguish, betrayal, heartbreak, and loneliness came his cries, which the Spirit turned into songs.
But still David didn’t know if or when he would ever be king. He knew nothing of his words and songs becoming anthems for generations, all the way to the Cross where Jesus echoed his words- “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” And many years later when the Bible would become print, and the whole world would repeat Psalm 23 at many a funeral. The valley of abandonment became the victory on the Hill of Calvary.
David didn’t know that God was using his suffering to sing to a world that had long lay in pain, and would continue to until Christ comes back one day to rule and reign.
God crafted songs through David’s suffering. No other tool formed such strong notes as his pain and heartbreak. He formed his character and trust that would make him the man after Gods own heart. It would prepare Him to lead the nation that would usher in the Messiah for the whole world.
None of this would have happened if David had simply been handed the kingdom.
We look around and we see how things come to people so easily- the things we are desperately wanting and we wonder why not us? “I’ve been faithful, I’ve been waiting longer. Praying more intently, living more rightly.”
But there’s another crucial part to David’s story. The waiting must have felt so painful, so long, so unnecessary. But all the waiting also played the soundtrack for the Messiah to come at the right pause in history. David’s waiting wasn’t God delaying, it was God’s perfect timing! His kingdom was being set up for eternity through the coming Messiah. Some of David’s psalms even identify with the suffering of the Messiah.
David clung to a God who is good, still trustworthy, still faithful despite his circumstances.
What an honor, what a privilege, what glory! Others were handed the kingdom and lived out there few days and are forgotten but David, who waited on the Lord was used to write history in a powerful way- through the songs of suffering and triumph.
You see praise comes in spite of circumstances because God is still deserving! We must sing the songs of praise even before the breakthrough. We push back the very darkness with our worship. Our circumstances may not change, but our God is powerful and worthy of our praise because He will accomplish his good purposes!
And one day our circumstances will change permanently. God will finish our story, He will rescue us from this life of running, and will carry us Home.
David said it best-
“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me ALL the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
By the way the Psalms are full of emotions, David didn’t praise God with a false happiness or a “well it’s all gonna be ok I guess”… he wept, he cried out, he experienced anger, and frustration, he asked God “When oh Lord will you arise, and slay your enemy?”
Our sacrifice of praise can point the suffering world to God, and it can also be an authentic cry- “When oh Lord?”
Will we praise Him when life looks bleak? When the long time prayer isn’t answered? When the answer comes that we didn’t want? This friend is a song of sacrifice, the heart that weeps and breaks and yet still says- I love you Lord, I’m gonna trust you!”
The children of Israel long before King David had many moments of doubt and the Lord still met them in their faith and fears. After being released from slavery in Egypt, they came against an uncrossable sea- the Red Sea. They wailed and complained, thinking they would die there, because now Pharaoh’s army was hot on their tail. With nowhere to turn, God told them- “You have only to be still, let the Lord fight for you.”
When we cry out to the Lord, we must wait expectantly. He doesn’t always deliver us out of the trouble, but He promises to deliver us through it and to walk with us.
The Red Sea may not part before us in the way or time we want it to. But it will part one day, and we will cross over into that land of no more sorrow, troubles or cares.
“Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life, where in spite of all you can do, there is no way out, there is no way back, there is no way but through? Then wait on the Lord with a trust serene. When He leads you on from a place of the sea, to a land that you have not known; you will no more be afraid; you will sing His praise in a better place, a place that His hand has made.” Annie J Flint
