Today was a hard day for me. Deep in my spirit, my soul was aching and my heart was fighting to press on. I know it’s just a momentary thing but at that moment, my heart was swollen with grief and pain.
Yet, even as I write this my heart worships the Lord and proclaims His goodness. I believe it more than I believe in the truth of my own temporary pain. I know His goodness is greater and more powerful then what comes before me. He is the One who has walked me to these waters and He will be the One who will bring me through…stronger, but not without the scars that come from a deeper faith.
It is hard to imagine that the circumstances that refine me as a believer are the very things that have also hurt me. In many ways, my faith in Jesus has been made stronger in pain, deeper in sorrow and truer in weakness. It is the unique blessing of being refined by fire. Like many before me, I’ve had moments in my life when my soul echoed Job- “thou He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15)
Only faith born of the Holy Spirit will make you worship when you are at your lowest and cause you to have hope when everything speaks against it. Only God’s Spirit will call you to praise Him when nothing makes sense and your heart has no more to give. In those moments, it beckons you to trust in a way unregenerate man will never understand.
It is a faith hardened like metal, forged in fire, and unable to be broken. That is the paradox of faith of those who come broken at the cross. Our broken lives are redeemed and replaced with an unbreakable faith, gifted by the One whose body was broken to heal us. The broken in spirit healed by One broken in flesh. It is the unique worship of the heart which knows that God alone upholds it. The soul that understands what it means to be steadied by an unbreakable rock.
So we praise, all of us united by pain. We praise in the troubled waters…knowing we are not alone in it. Knowing, they are only for a moment. We praise knowing that what lies on the other side of our pain is a deeper, more beautiful faith.
We believe, for our God is faithful and we worship because our God is good.
To every believer broken and weary, worship with me this day. Remember your soul is precious to your King and your pain is seen by Him. He will walk you through to the other side of these waters. Amen and amen.