Last week, in between Sundays, I attended two worship services. My
soul needed it after the first Sunday in 28 years without a church to
call home was a bust in regards to worship. We were late to one local
service and before we could get across town to the next we received a
text letting us know that we needed to meet up with our daughter who was
learning to navigate her own new normal Fifteen minutes later we
received another text letting us know the crisis was averted and she
would see us after church. This pause was just long enough to make us
late for our second service in one day. Not wanting to make it a third,
we ended up staying home and listening to a sermon on line. It was
excellent, but the experience left our hearts hungering to worship with
others in community.
We found a midweek service to attend. It was one of the best produced I had ever been to in the local area. In fact, only at conferences have I experienced such excellent video, lighting, camera work, and music. For someone who loves creating environments for worship you would have thought I would have been in Heaven, but that was not the case.
In this service, they kept talking about being happy, “Happy in the Lord.” To be honest I was anything but happy. In fact, I was the opposite of happy. I was experiencing sadness, loss, and grief. My soul could not take it. I leaned over to my wife and asked, “Are you ready to get out of here.” To my surprise, she was hoping I would ask. As inconspicuously as possible, we got up and walked out.
The second service I attended was a funeral. A house filled with sadness, loss and grief. I felt at home. There was no talk of being happy. They did speak about happy times, but these were moments of a larger life, filled with both happiness and sadness. To hear them talk about it, these two emotional states would ebb and flow, even intermingle through the seasons of life. I knew this was true.
They did not leave it there however. They talked, sung, and prayed about something deeper than happiness, and far deeper than sadness. They spoke about joy and in the process drew our hearts into it. This worship was what we had longed to engage in. It was healing.
You see, Joy moves us beyond our emotions to the deep places of our hearts. It springs up, not from our circumstances, but from gratitude. It is given birth in remembering God’s faithfulness in the past and trusting Him to be faithful in the future. Joy is a calm delight that rises from our knowledge of who God is. His character, nature and love. It flows from the knowledge that we are His and He cares for us, even when the circumstances of our life are hard.
I am sad. There has been loss. I will continue to grieve, but in the midst of it, I can tell you with great confidence there is joy. I was grateful to find a worship service that was able to speak to all of it.
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.
Habakkuk 3:18-19
We found a midweek service to attend. It was one of the best produced I had ever been to in the local area. In fact, only at conferences have I experienced such excellent video, lighting, camera work, and music. For someone who loves creating environments for worship you would have thought I would have been in Heaven, but that was not the case.
In this service, they kept talking about being happy, “Happy in the Lord.” To be honest I was anything but happy. In fact, I was the opposite of happy. I was experiencing sadness, loss, and grief. My soul could not take it. I leaned over to my wife and asked, “Are you ready to get out of here.” To my surprise, she was hoping I would ask. As inconspicuously as possible, we got up and walked out.
The second service I attended was a funeral. A house filled with sadness, loss and grief. I felt at home. There was no talk of being happy. They did speak about happy times, but these were moments of a larger life, filled with both happiness and sadness. To hear them talk about it, these two emotional states would ebb and flow, even intermingle through the seasons of life. I knew this was true.
They did not leave it there however. They talked, sung, and prayed about something deeper than happiness, and far deeper than sadness. They spoke about joy and in the process drew our hearts into it. This worship was what we had longed to engage in. It was healing.
You see, Joy moves us beyond our emotions to the deep places of our hearts. It springs up, not from our circumstances, but from gratitude. It is given birth in remembering God’s faithfulness in the past and trusting Him to be faithful in the future. Joy is a calm delight that rises from our knowledge of who God is. His character, nature and love. It flows from the knowledge that we are His and He cares for us, even when the circumstances of our life are hard.
I am sad. There has been loss. I will continue to grieve, but in the midst of it, I can tell you with great confidence there is joy. I was grateful to find a worship service that was able to speak to all of it.
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.
Habakkuk 3:18-19
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