StrongerSample

Worship—Finally Giving Up the Illusion of Control

It’s not your position in life that makes you strong. It’s your posture before God. When we embrace hard times and admit that we are powerless to change them, we leverage that weakness as it drives us to our knees before a powerful and loving God who helps us. Getting low, humbling ourselves before God, is actually an act of worship. A posture of humility in the presence of God’s great power prepares us for the hard times we face in this life.

It’s not about how hard we work. It’s about how well we worship. Worship is ascribing worth to God. The last thing we want to do when we’re weak is to worship. Yet worship is the very thing we must do if we want to be stronger. Pain breaks us wide open, and something within our own depths cries out to the expansive heart of God. 

In Scripture we see a connection between pain and worship. For example, in Acts, Paul and Silas are imprisoned for preaching the gospel. But when they get to prison, as the specter of midnight hovers over them, they begin to sing to God—and it is their worship that God ultimately uses to get them out of lockup. One minute they’re singing, and the next minute the prison doors are knocked wide open by an earthquake. In a moment’s time, worship can change our perspective about our circumstance—and sometimes, the situation itself is radically changed.

The relationship between worship and weakness is especially provocative in Psalms, the ancient prayer and worship book of the church. Often what we see in the psalms is a distinct pattern of people crying out to God, being ruthlessly candid with Him about the depth of their brokenness, and then finally giving way to trust. 

A beautiful example of this is Psalm 142. Once the psalmist cries out to the Lord and releases all the anguish and grief, the complaint gives way to trust. Thus the words are, “I cry to you, Lord; I say, ‘You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living’” (verse 5).

In a deep, experiential way, then, worship forms us into what we love: if we love Jesus, worshiping Jesus makes us more like Him. And thus our own story is embedded more deeply in the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Our own brokenness is bound up in His suffering. The hope of resurrection is an ever-present reality. His resurrection is strong enough to swallow up all of our weaknesses.

How is surrender and humility a part of your worship to God?