How to Worship Through It

It can be difficult to praise the Lord during your suffering, but it is so worthwhile! Learn from my example of recent struggles and the decision to worship God no matter what, and how that can strengthen you to endure.

Transcript

When we find ourselves in unpleasant circumstances and we a re not exactly happy, it can be a struggle to put that aside and just worship God. The truth is, however, there is no greater time to engage in spirit-led, heart-felt, honest worship to the Lord than when we are going through difficulties. While our natural inclination may be to complain or express or frustration or beg the Lord to change our circumstances, sometimes what we need is found in His presence, just coming before Him with a heart of worship.

So how do we do that? How can we be miserably unhappy with our circumstances and sincerely worship God in the middle of that? If I’m genuinely depressed, I am sad and feeling down and heavy, is it even authentic to worship God joyfully? Wouldn’t that just be denying reality or just trying to escape what’s going on?

I can identify with these questions and having a difficult time with things not going your way, or recently grieving the loss of loved ones. I have a story to tell you in a minute when things were just recently not going well, and I made that choice to worship in it. I’ll tell you all about that in a moment, but I can identify with not understanding why we should worship when we’re not happy and things aren’t going well. It doesn’t make sense to us as human beings, and it certainly doesn’t come naturally. However, we were made to worship, we were created to worship God at all times, no matter what is going on around us, and I want to address why that is and the strength that can come from that.

So, I promised my story. As you know, if you listened to my previous episode about living with grief, my father just passed away a couple of weeks ago. It has been a hard time, I miss him, and there are so many thoughts that still come up about him not being around anymore and the things he won’t get to see with his grandchildren, etc. It’s so hard to lose someone close to you. So, I talked about the support of my church which is still really helping me through this season right now, and that’s wonderful, but, there is more going on that just that right now.

Just a day after my father passed away, my six year old came down with the flu. Being a mother you can’t just “take time of work” so to speak, you still have to do the mom things, so I was dealing with that between my father’s death and the funeral. My son had a reflux issue, so if he has a cough, he is prone to vomiting, so keeping him fed is a challenge whenever he is sick. So I’m grieving my father and dealing with all of this. A few days go by and we have the funeral. My son vomits at lunch afterwards, it was a mess, we were in public, he’s still coughing, it was exhausting. The funeral itself went well and that was a relief and it was a beautiful goodbye, and a lot of friends and family came out, it was nice. But that happened immediately afterwards, and then the next day, my daughter catches a fever. She caught the flu as well, so now I have two sick kids and I just let go of my dad. There was no time to breathe!

Now, the funeral was on Monday. On Thursday, a couple of days later, my husband gets a call from his sister that it’s time to go to the hospital and see his mother because she is dying. They predicted that she would only hang on for a few more days. She was located about six hours out, so he drove out and he had to go and stay up there for her last days. So, he leaves that night, Thursday night, and I wake up with the flu Friday morning. So, my daughter has the flu, I have the flu, my son is starting to feel better, but my husband is now going out of town for a week, and he’s losing his mother. I’m losing my mother in law now. Thankfully he didn’t catch the flu, but we’re fighting it down here.

So, by Monday midnight, she passes away. It was one day before her birthday. So he’s miles away, hours away, I’m grieving my father, he’s grieving his mother, we’ve been separated for longer than we have in the last 18 years, I’m sick with the flu, my daughter is sick with the flu, the laundry machine downstairs is broken, so I can’t even do laundry. Thank goodness for grocery delivery, right? My toilet handle breaks in the middle of the night. I had to create some makeshift way to get that working again, my husband is away so he can’t do that like he normally would take care of something like that. I’m emotional because I want to just wrap my arms around my husband because he is dealing with this terrible loss and I can’t be with him.

I woke up on of those days he was away, and I put on the Shout to the Lord album from the 90s. I played the whole album, I listened with my eyes closed, I barely had a voice but I sang. I stood up, I lifted my hands, and I lifted my heart to the Lord. My heart was so full of joy. In the middle of all the grief, being separated from my husband at probably one of the saddest times of his life, battling the flu, dealing with random household inconveniences alone, I could have gotten angry, I could have complained, I could have gotten upset and frustrated. No one would have blamed me for reacting in a natural way to those circumstances, but can I tell you that we are not called to the natural. We are called to the supernatural! I found a supernatural joy because I worshipped the Lord, with my whole heart, because of who He is. I worshipped Him because He is good, and He is faithful and He is with me in the middle of my grief, His is with me in my illness, He is with me in my loneliness, and He is worthy of that praise. I made a true sacrifice of praise in the midst of all that suffering because the Lord is worthy of it. You don’t need any other reason to praise Him. Just take a moment and think about who He is.

I shared that with you to help you see how the Lord can just show up in those hard times. He is always with you, but when you worship Him in spirit and in truth you can connect with Him in such a special way. You can find healing in that worship. You can find joy in that worship. You can find peace in that worship. This is not an emotional worship, my emotions we’re not in it at first. I made a decision to worship the Lord. Psalm 103:1-2 NLT says, “Let all that I am praise the Lord; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name. Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me.” Bless the Lord! This is a decision! I told myself to bless the Lord. Out of that action, my heart reached Him and He comforted me. I got everything I needed from that time of worship. It wasn’t about the songs, or the music, it was about the prayers that my heart was praying while the music was playing. It was His presence that touched my heart because I was crying out to Him. It didn’t matter how I sounded, it didn’t matter if anyone else heard me, true worship is a secret place in your heart where only you and the Lord meet. That is the place where you find everything you need.

If you are going through something right now, worship the Lord. If you aren’t having a particularly hard time right now and things are going well, worship the Lord. Praise has to be your default setting no matter what’s going on because the Lord doesn’t change. He doesn’t change. The Lord is always good. He is always for you. He is always kind and merciful. He is love! There is no one greater than He is. He deserves all of your praise and it doesn’t matter what you are going through.

Worship will not make all of your troubles disappear. This is not an escape from your circumstances, but it is an empowerment to get through them. It is comfort and support in the midst of them. I have joy today and it makes not sense. I have peace today, and it makes no sense. I worship the Lord because He is worthy of it, and He gives me His peace and joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength. If you are looking for strength today, it is found in the Lord, look no further. Exodus 15:2 NLT says, “The Lord is my strength and my song; he has given me victory. This is my God, and I will praise him—my father’s God, and I will exalt him!” If you’ve been worried about your circumstances, or complaining about them, try worshipping instead. Just try it. Praise the Lord. Make that decision today. Command your soul to praise the Lord, make the choice to do it and He will meet you there. He will strengthen you when you’ve go no strength left of your own. Everything that you need, all the wisdom, all the grace, all of the help you need is in Christ.  Worship Him in the middle of your storm, before the storm, after the storm, because He is worthy all the time, AMEN?

God bless you, and thank you for listening today. Please subscribe if you haven’t done so already, sign up for my email list at patreon.com/jesuswomen, and buy my book, Slow and Steady: Biblical Wisdom from the Hare and the Tortoise links below the description. Remember don’t quit, get equipped! Take care.