Over the last 10-15 years there has been a beautiful resurgence of worship songs about pain and suffering.
Songs like You Never Let Go, Whom Shall I Fear, and The Desert Song have provided weary saints with declarations of faith in the midst of their pain. This is wonderful. Our worship expression needs to touch on all the areas of human experience – joy, celebration, lament, suffering, confusion, hope, and loss.
Worship isn’t a place to forget your circumstances. It’s a place to bring them. It’s a place where they find their God-ordained context.
But until your life has been touched by fire, you don’t know what it’s like to actually worship in the midst of it.
It’s easy to talk about worshiping in the midst of your pain. It’s easy to write blog posts, preach sermons, discuss, and sing songs about the trial and the pain.
But what does this look like when the darkness over your life is overwhelming?
- When your hope seems all but gone, what does your worship look like?
- When you lose a son or daughter, what does your worship look like?
- When you receive a terrible diagnosis, what does your worship look like?
- When you finalize the divorce papers, what does your worship look like?
- When you experience a business failure, what does your worship look like?
I’ve shared some of my story on the blog already, so I won’t repeat myself. You can find that here and here. But suffice it to say I’ve had some opportunities for my worship to be tested.
I remember sitting in worship services where I wanted to vomit. Not because of my sickness, but because no one knew what I was going through.
I remember reading my Bible and chucking it across the room because none of it worked for me (yea, those were some low times).
And while there’s always someone else who suffers more, it still doesn’t minimize the mountain that towers over you. It is real. It is scary. It is confusing.
Keep Showing Up
Yes, this is a blog post about worshiping through pain and suffering, but I’m not going to give you 10 steps for properly worshiping through pain. Gag.
Instead, I’m going to give you three words. These three words are the most important thing you can do.
You may not have the song to sing, or even the voice to sing. You may not have the strength to raise your hands. You may not have the mental clarity to articulate your theology of suffering.
But there’s one thing you can do: Keep. Showing. Up.
Approach the throne of grace every day. Multiple times a day. Show up in the presence of God. Keep coming closer. Run harder.
You don’t have to possess the right words. God can handle your silence.
You don’t have to understand. God can handle your confusion.
You don’t have to repress your messy emotions. God wants it all.
The enemy’s goal is for you to withdrawal from His presence. To believe the lie that He’s forsaken you.
He wants you. He loves you. He doesn’t just love the perfect you or “the-proper-way-to-respond-to-this-situation” you. Just come. He wants to weep with you, enjoy you, identify with you, and be with you.
He has not forgotten you. He has not abandoned you. His calling on your life is truer now than ever.
When circumstances scream otherwise, believe the truth, beautiful child of God. Believe, believe, believe that He is for you.
A Note to Worship Leaders
If you lead worship, you need to keep in mind that every service you lead is filled with people who are suffering. They are struggling to find the words or the reason for their circumstances. Some are considering giving up.
Rick Bezet was a speaker at our recent Ignite conference. He said the one thing that changed his preaching more than anything was this: Identify one person in the room who is hurting and speak to them.
I challenge you, worship leader: identify one person in the room who is hurting and lead for them. You will lead with a deeper compassion. You will be more sensitive. Your songs will connect on a deeper level.
Help people show up. Help people maintain the habit of running into the presence of God.
Teach them how to worship when their life doesn’t make sense.
Your Turn
What is your story? How have you found the strength to worship in the midst of your suffering? How do you help others do the same?
Let’s talk about it in the comments. This blog post simply isn’t complete without your insight 🙂
So speak up, my friend. You can leave a comment by clicking here.
[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]
P.S. I know this video is 15 minutes long, but it is well worth your time. Bob Sorge’s teaching is so powerful as it relates to our pain and our calling:
my valley came in january 2013 when the church where i served for 18 years said “you don’t need to come back tomorrow.” and there was a lot more around than is the scope of this comment.
but i was very low because, as i became aware, my identity was in my job/role/position as worship leader. fortunately, i was able to heal and regained my perspective that my identity is in Christ whether i am a vocational worship leader or not. there is great comfort in knowing that less of me means more of Him.
Wow, that’s so tough, Jared. Thanks for sharing. The hardest trials are ones that seem to come out of nowhere and knock you off guard. How have things been since the transition?
thriving!
it’s been an adjustment, but a necessary one.
your words to “keep showing up” were especially hard when i had to visit other churches where i didn’t know the songs and hadn’t come to know or trust the worship leader or pastor. i wanted to sing for i knew the words i’d been saying for song long were still true: there is healing in worship. but when your heart and head aren’t on the same page of the hymnal the song is often silence. and that’s OK.
and per my original comment, i had to learn that my identity is in Christ. i’m not defined as a worship leader, or musician, or husband, or father, or… i am a sinner saved by grace, a child of the King. those or roles in which i serve, whether by calling or choice, and yet who i am needs to be completely lost in Him or else my service is selfish.
not that anything i’d done before was invalid, but my perspective now qualifies me in ways i not experienced before.
Beautiful. “When your heart and head aren’t on the same page of the hymnal, the song is often silence.” That is so well said. Thanks.
Incredible timing. I’m a worship leader and my wife has a potentially deadly cancer. She has been battling this thing for the past couple of years. Well, about a month ago the doctors pretty much said that her situation has gotten very serious, and that they are running out of ideas.
So far we have been able to worship and lead people in worship through this cancer and the fear that accompanies it. However, this was a punch in the gut. It has become hard work to worship God. To even want to talk with him at all. Then I get caught in a position where I should probably not be leading people in worship since I might not fully mean the words of the songs right now. It is so difficult for me to say “it is well” or “you are good.”
That being said, I have taken about a month off, and I’m leading again this weekend. I’m scared. I don’t want to be a fake. Yet, I don’t want to bring my pain into the congregation.
All this is to say: thank you for the encouragement. I’ll keep showing up. Also, pray for us.
Wow, Ramon. This is so intense and my prayers go out to you and your wife. Thanks for having the courage to share. I think it’s OK to bring your pain into worship. Matter of fact, I don’t believe there’s any other option. Worship is only real when it happens in every season. If anything, Ramon, I believe your worship leading will be even more powerful, compassionate, and real this weekend. Praying hard for you!
I lost my dad in July of 2013 to a sudden heart attack. To say the past year has been hard would be an understatement. Leading worship has always been my favorite thing, and although it is hard at times to not be angry at God, I’ve actually found that my worship has grown more intentional and mor authentic over the past year. Worshipping in the midst of my pain has allowed me to grow closer to God. People have asked me if my faith has been shaken. Of course. BUT, if I didn’t “keep showing up”, I’d be running from the ONE thing that is holding me together. I could not, ever, walk thru this pain on my own strength.
Worship songs about pain and suffering have never held more truth in my life…but the same can be said for songs declaring things about heaven, or talking about how Jesus defeated death and grave. There’s so much HOPE in those songs. Hope that I recognized in the lyrics before, but that I can actually identify with now.
Thanks for this post, David. This is the story of my life these days. Keep showing up…I love that. It’s the only option, really.
Gina, I can’t imagine the pain of what you’ve been walking through. Such loss. Thanks for sharing your story. It’s so encouraging to see you thriving as a worshiper and how God is sustaining you and your family.
Last year, I lost my paternal grandfather on a Saturday. We were close. It was hard. I remember going to church the next day and singing Desert Song and thinking that “This must be what it’s like to worship in the middle of the storm. This hurts, but I can do it.” I lost my dad unexpectedly the next Saturday and for the first and only time in my life so far I learned what it’s like to be totally and utterly crushed. My family that was so close became fractured, my emotional life was turned upside down, and any type of meaningful spiritual growth came to a halt. My dad missed the birth of our twins by six weeks. I couldn’t sing Desert Song for over a year because I just decided that I couldn’t sing “All of my life, in every season… etc” and really mean it. It’s interesting that the times that should drive us closer to God sometimes do the opposite. But He has been faithful and I feel like I’m slowly finding my way in life again as I get back on track with Him. And although I’ve known this intellectually for a long time, I’ve learned that He really is good not in spite of trials, but often times because of them. I enjoyed reading this post. It really did a nice job of condensing so many things that I’ve thought and felt over the past year.
Wow, Ben. Such a gut wrenching story. I thought this was so powerful – “He is good not in spite of trials, but often because of them.” That is deep, deep worship my friend. Thank you.
You know, as I look around at our world today it’s no wonder why so many come into Church weary, broken, stressed and distraught. Why so many do not seem to worship. One day this hit me and is STILL hitting me. The American Church tries to make Church so “positive” and “happy”. Trust me, there’s a huge contrast to European Churches! Unfortunately this can make Christians feel like something is wrong with them IF they do not feel “up and happy”. It puts a subtle pressure on the hurting Christian and makes it hard to be REAL. People put on a church face to fit in. This positive, fake church “culture” is creating problems and Christians do not feel they can be themselves or share their struggles. Then on top of that we sing all these “happy” “everything is wonderful” types of songs and our true feelings are being stuffed down and denied. Our challenge as worship leaders is to have a theologically healthy mix of songs that cover the gament of human emotion and experiences that will minister to the Saints. If we always sing songs about being happy all the time, is this meeting people where they really are? After awhile, people will check out and see no relevancy in their church. So, what I want to do is make sure I find a large assortment of differing songs that address all the seasons of the soul. Songs on suffering, on trials, on trusting. This is where most of us live anyways. When I look over my Master worship song list, I see how unbalanced it is! How I desperately need to search for songs outside my normal preference. David, I wanted you to hear this wonderfully re-done Hymn. It has awesome lyrics and is an encouraging song in times like these. We do this in our church. God Moves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pTEboDF090&feature=kp
Lousie, thanks for sharing. I look forward to checking out the link. I agree – I think our song choices need to be more balanced. Brian Doerksen and I discussed this topic in a recent podcast here: https://www.davidsantistevan.com/36/
What songs of lament and suffering have you found that have worked well? Thanks!
I’m 39. A month ago, I was diagnosed with colon cancer, a very aggressive form. The doctor asked me how I felt when he told me and I said, “I’m so relieved. ” He couldn’t believe what I was saying and said, “I just told you that you have colon cancer” to which I responded, “but God revealed it and we can treat it. ” I had surgery 2 weeks ago to remove 2 feet of my colon. Now, there are tears where they repaired it and I need another procedure tomorrow. My job has been understanding, but there is no such thing as short term disability for us right now and the money will stop coming in after this week. I’m not scared though. God had been so good to us, he has plans for us in all if this that we don’t understand. I am still praising him in this storm.
Mindy, I’m encouraged by your faith! Thanks for sharing your story. I’m spending some time praying for you today.
Thank you for sharing! I really am blessed and encouraged by this. I remember facing a situation wherein I never wanted to be in the ministry again because of a mistake I did. But then, as I was worshiping God in my room, I felt the love of God stirring in my heart, and I felt Him reminding me that He will never stop loving me.
This is a great post, David! My journey digging into the Bible to find all it could show me about worship began with a difficult situation that made no sense to me.
Short version is that I slept 30 minutes a night for 7 years. (I know – I shouldn’t be alive.) Sleep doctors were confounded and gave up (won’t go into the reasons why they were missing a physical problem), so I found myself in a very difficult situation that affected me not only physically, but mentally, emotionally, and any other -ally in life. (Throw in that I was a mom of two young girls, wife, assistant to my worship leader husband. . .)
About 4 years into this struggle, I attended a 3-day Christian conference with about 7 other people from church, including my husband. (About the same time I was carrying the burden of close family with severe health problems and family and friends going through the rigors of divorce and custody issues.) And during this conference, we were led in not only incredible, Spirit-led worship each day, but we worshiped for an hour or more, three-times a day, for each of those days. I really believe we worshiped for at least twelve hours in that short three-day conference! And each of those hours found me closer to the throne of God, with a clearer view of who He was in all His glory, and craving more! The result was an incredible peace that flooded my heart and mind, even as I considered all of the various problems that surrounded me and my loved ones. The change was so profound that I knew that I couldn’t ignore the powerful effect of gazing intensely at my Lord and offering to Him all I could in worship.
I left there thinking, “Wow, what just happened? And what happened when people in the Bible worshiped? How can I become that kind of worshiper regularly?” I suddenly had such an incredible, inner drive to understand God’s plan for me as His worshiper, that I began my study immediately. I was so completely blown away by what I was learning about worship (and this after being in full-time music/worship ministry already for over 20 years already) that I had to take my discoveries out of my journal and put them in a book for others to read. They were too life-changing not to!
So worshiping God in the midst of a difficult place – and seeing who He was for me in that place – taught me more about Him and true worship than I think I would’ve ever learned otherwise. I wouldn’t trade the whole experience, difficulty and all, for anything. Our God is faithful. He alone is good and worthy!
Thanks for this post! (And sorry this was so long!)
Pam
(author of the Bible study “Worship and the Word” – pamelahaddix.com)
Sorry the link to my worship blog didn’t work the first time. http://pamelahaddix.com/
If anyone wants to read another powerful story of worshiping in a difficult place, read this interview with Jon Curtis. He and his wife are missionaries in Manilla, Philippines, and last December, their baby daughter, Shiloh Jubilee, was born at only 19.5 weeks gestation and 1.25 lb. I was so moved and encouraged by the stories of their worshiping over Shiloh in the NICU, I had to interview him so others could hear them, too.
http://pamelahaddix.com/2014/02/21/worshiping-in-the-difficult-place-an-interview-with-jon-curtis/
BTW, I love this Bob Sorge video. Especially since his book, Secrets of the Secret Place, is by far my favorite on developing an intimate personal relationship with God. I’ve given it away to sooo many people. This video is about something that happened before he wrote that book, so it gives me new insights into his own personal walk through that struggle. Thanks for sharing that!
I love what your saying,truly the things we face are not subject to where you are,Im actually from South Africa and I’ve been in the worship team since I was 12 and one would imagine that over the years it would get easy but here I am 19 now and it seems I have a lot more unanswered questions about everything now and nothing anyone you seek advice from says seems to strike a nerve.Keep.Showing.Up makes so much sense there would be so many times all I would want to do is forget I’m a worshipper because the war within with confidence and shame even gets really rough,when you cry it wouldnt be because of the spirit moving you but pain while your ministering when things dont make sense it all seems futile.Perhaps this has a lot more to do with coming to the revelation of Christ and His work and not so much me,me,me which coming to think of it is something I have to overcome.
My point is,I’m inspired thank you.
This is amazing, but i really wanted to know.
How do you teach someone to worship when they are suffering? I have led sessions of worship ans when you look around the room, no one seems bothered about what’s going on. Their facial expressions are usually, “get this over and done with so that the rest of the service can go on”.
With praise a leader can easily get the congregation to be apart of what is going on, when it comes to worship, people sit down, fold their hands or just stand and look at you.
What does it take to have everyone involved during worship?
I know this article is older but as a worship leader for past 10 years ministering in and out of pain-i was looking for something to minister to me. Today I was ready to walk away from the life of a leader and just go back to being a worshipper. As a worship leader, people often forget that you are a person and you deal with things as well. Dealing with home life, work life and church life can be overwhelming and when your most heartache is as a result of ministry it makes you want to walk away and not look back-butthere was a line in your article that says JUST SHOW UP. My pain was as a result of my leaders and fellow leaders. My maturity and intergrity diminshed and called out~ the pain was so bad everything was cloudy but today im encouraged me to stay in the fight! show up tothe throne and worship. I have been anointed for the job and appointed before the foundation of the earth. It doesnt matter how the pain comes through sickness, death or in ministry dont let the pain cloud the purpose.
God bless
I never figured out how to worship through suffering, I just kept falling apart in His presence and asking for Him to take the fear, and one day I just could stand there and worship. I worship the Lord every time my husband has a seizure. I hold him and pray. It no longer throws me to the ground in fear. The Lord took my fear. It was too big for me to figure out how on this one.
I understood when the things you knew how to do, you can’t do it anymore. When it’s going through many years, it keeps getting harder. Self-sufficiency is broken, you can only run to God, experienced similar thing for 7 years. Then, people you trust like family, close friends began doubting you or think you are crazy or needs a shrink,. Though you know it’s out of goodness on their part, you know it’s not what you need. On top of that, you run into many accidents, making your health more fragile. God also whispered to me ‘shekinah’ and ‘abba shekar’. I don’t know those terms, later after researching learned shekinak in Hebrew means ‘dwelling’ . While ‘shekar’ means drunkeness, then, it doesn’t makes sense to me, because I don’t drink, put together with ‘Abba shekar’, drukeness with Abba Father, our God. I’m still in my valley, in my meantime moment, but I believe more so now than before in God as 3-in-1 and somehow got a glimpse of the power of the Holy Spirit because of what I’ve been through and still going through.
I love this post… And all the comments just made me smile … I know what it is like to worship in pains… I know that our trailer times should bring us closer to God but at times it doesn’t work out that way… I lived a depression life because I was short 4 feet 10 or so many people called me short and all I wanted was to grow, each time I see tall people I cry and this was going on for years… I prayed to God to make me taller, I even went as far as making a covenant.. And nothing seems to be happening, so I couldn’t worship God the way I should, I was backsliding… I hated God, I thought he was wicked… But thanks to God almighty, I have accepted myself just as I am… I now worship God with all of my hrt…
My son spent time in foster care after my ex-husband abused him. In that time, when I didn’t know how to reconcile fighting for my son with fighting for my marriage (divorce being a word I at first did not dare speak as a Christian), I wrote this song to express my faith in Christ to carry me through:
Still
There was a time when all I’d yearned for
Seemed to be the things I’d earned, more
than I’d ever wanted from the start
Then it seemed the tide had turned, Lord,
The waters came, the waters churned, why
does this pain and sorrow pierce my heart?
But still, I know it’s in your plans, Lord,
Yes, still, I know it’s in your plans, Lord
Still, I know it’s in your plans, Lord
To do good and not to harm
So I’m still where I wanna be
Yes, I’m still where I wanna be
Lord, I’m still where I wanna be
Right here in your arms
Even though I don’t know yet,
What’s ahead, Nothing I’ve met
Has been more than my Saviour can control
Though I’m broken and I’m torn,
My body’s weak, my spirit’s worn
Jesus Christ holds me, this world, my soul
So still, I know it’s in your plans, Lord,
Yes, still, I know it’s in your plans, Lord
Still, I know it’s in your plans, Lord
To do good and not to harm
So I’m still where I wanna be
Yes, I’m still where I wanna be
Lord, I’m still where I wanna be
Right here in your arms
So I’m still where I wanna be
Yes, I’m still where I wanna be
Lord, I’m still where I wanna be
Right here in your arms
Right here in your arms
Right here in your arms
Still.
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My family is in the crucible as I write this. Our 25 year old son is in a mental hospital in an acute bipolar eoisode. He was symptom-free until he was 22 years old. He was diagnosed during his first year of medical school, after having had a very successful college career. He has struggled since then. Often, his delusions are centered around things of faith. He loves the Lord perhaps more than anyone I know. Most recently, this fall he had tried to restart medical school, as he felt that that was what the Lord had called him to do. But now he is having another episode. We are heartbroken, and his future and our family’s future seems so uncertain. And I feel so helpless, not knowing how to lead us in this crisis. I am home this morning when I would normally be worshipping at church. I’m exhausted and afraid. Thank you for writing this.