Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
– Psalm 100
I heard a preacher once say that there’s a difference between praise and worship. Praise, he said, is standing up and saying “God is good. Look at what He’s done for me.” Worship is going on your knees and saying, “Even though I don’t understand what’s going on, God, I know You’re still good.”
That stuck with me. Not so much that praise and worship might be different, but that there’s a need to differentiate glorifying God in good times and glorifying Him in bad times. But we react differently, don’t we? It’s much easier to list all the great things He’s done that we like than it is to trust Him when He’s doing something we don’t understand.
Last week, in my post When Everything Goes Wrong, I discussed thanking God during trials. But what about glorifying Him? What about saying, “Even though things aren’t going the way I thought they would, You’re still great. Even though I’m hurting right now, You’re still a loving Father. Even though I don’t understand, I still trust You.”
Because just as I mentioned in my post Don’t Turn Your Back to the Sunset, we often become so focused on the darkness that we lose sight of the beauty around us. We forget that the darkness never lasts. Not in the sky and not in our lives.
We forget that if Christ can conquer the grave, He can conquer anything.
But we often get so caught up in what we want that we lose sight of what God wants. And when He doesn’t give us what we want, we get upset. Lose faith.
We stop singing.
And we need to keep singing. Why? Because God doesn’t stop being God when bad things happen. God doesn’t stop being God when our plans go awry.
Because God is God and we are not.
I will never be able to understand why God does what He does. Even as I write this, my heart is broken over things in my life I don’t understand. Things I want to change but can’t. And we have a lot of platitudes to offer for this situation, don’t we? We tell people not to lose faith. That we’ll understand it one day.
And while we do need to hold on to our faith, maybe, just maybe, there’s more. Maybe true comfort comes in the ability to look at God and say, “You are faithful. You are dependable. And no matter what, I’ll keep serving You.”
Maybe, just maybe, that is what the world needs to see most. What we need to see. Not just hearing Christians spout platitude after platitude. But to see Christians standing in the midst of the storm with a hand raised to God. Not shaking our fist at Him, but offering an open hand. Maybe what we need to remember is that God is waiting to hold our hand. That all we have to do is reach out, and He is there.
Maybe that’s the strongest form of praise and worship there is. To stand and say, “I’m surrounded by trouble, but God still holds my hand.” To say, “I don’t understand what’s going on, but God is still good.”
And when the world sees that, maybe they’ll realize our faith isn’t a fairy tale. That God is so much more than a deity on a throne. That’s He’s a loving, faithful Father who’s invested in our lives.
Maybe when our fellow Christians see us broken but reminding ourselves of God’s glory, we’ll encourage them without saying a word to them.
Everyone faces trouble. Everyone struggles. But when we can still raise our voices in praise, when we still live our lives singing of His glory, it won’t just change others.
It’ll change us, too.
