May Your Praise Be Louder than Your Pain

I love the movement that is going on right now where worship bands are becoming the focus on the radio, where concerts are taking place that draw hundreds of people together for the soul purpose of joining together and worshiping our creator.  I LOVE that there are hundreds of singers and songwriters that are trained and gifted in leading others into worship and where the focus is less on entertainment and more on desiring God's presence.

However, I think there is a danger in all of this--the danger of thinking that our worship has to be perfect, radio-ready, and trained in order to be pleasing to the Lord.  Now, I'm not saying that striving for greatness or that being equipped in what you do is wrong--I believe that we should do everything with excellence--but I also feel that sometimes our purest form of worship to God is not always pretty.

Worship is quite simple and yet we seem to over complicate it.  Worship is simply praising God for who He is beyond what we can fathom and understand--it is choosing to seek God, to put our hope in Him, and to trust Him beyond all that we can see, feel, and touch.  Worship is simply surrender.

So often when our worship needs to be the greatest (when our surrender is the hardest) is when we are facing life's greatest challenges, hurts, and pains.  I don't know about you but when my eyes are filled with tears, and my voice is choked with sobs---its not always a joyful noise that is coming from my lips.  I sometimes shy away from worship because my song is not always pretty.

When your eyes are filled with tears, when your voice is choked with sobs, when the sound that comes from your lips is weary, flat, or cracked---SING OUT.  God is looking for the melody that plays over your soul--He is looking for the song that your heart sings.  He delights (I love that word! Don't you?) in our hearts and when we choose to worship Him in the midst of where we are and what we feel.  When we put our focus on His hope and in trusting in Him, the noise from our lips is a symphony to Him.

Don't hold back your worship when your heart is heavy...Let Your Praise Be Louder Than Your Pain.

God Delights In You.