WORSHIPPING THROUGH CLOUDED EYES

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.

 Job 1:21

LESSONS FROM THE CLASSROOM

Her name was Ms. Plum.

She was the substitute teacher that everyone feared in our little elementary school and the one that everyone hoped was sick when your teacher needed someone to fill in.

I was a teacher’s pet all throughout school. I was an extreme rule follower and had mini panic attacks whenever someone would try and whisper to me during class, thinking I was going to get kicked out of school.

So, the fact that some of the boys in my class decided to pull a prank on Ms. Plum, had me riddled with anxiety.

They tried the oldest trick in the book, a thumb-tack on her desk chair. Of course, she saw the tack sticking out sideways from the cushion and immediately stopped our quiet reading time to stomp up to the front of the class and demand an explanation.

Even though I knew that I did nothing to deserve getting in trouble, I was still afraid to look her directly in the eyes.

The boys didn’t think their master-plan through all the way and never expected to be caught, so nobody was fessing up to the prank. So, everyone got in trouble. We all had to stay inside for recess that day and I was devastated.

I felt like it was such an injustice.

I hated putting my head down on my desk and getting a bad report from Ms. Plum.

I hated that my teacher would get the impression that I was a poor student and was playing around.

Even though I was only eight years old, I had a tiny taste of what it felt like to have something bad happen to you even though you were striving to do everything right. I was so frustrated and so angry at Ms. Plum and wanted nothing more than to have her disappear with the snap of my fingers.

JOB’S DESPERATION

Whenever awful things start happening to us, don’t we fully expect God to come charging in on a white stallion and take away every hardship, painful experience and tough situation?

God’s heart is completely for us and His desire is to make all of our lives filled with joy and abundance of blessing. But, the hard thing is that sometimes He allows really hard stuff to happen in our lives. 

That’s hard to wrestle with.

Let’s meet Job.

He was righteous, wealthy, rich in relationships, and walked closely with God. He had everything in his life going for him. He was living happily and peacefully. He did nothing to provoke evil.

He was also dealt an awful hand of death, disappointment, desperation, and despair.

Throughout the entirety of the book of Job, the enemy plagues him with death, sickness, loneliness, poverty, and utter desolation which ultimately tests his faith.

He takes away his home, wealth, livelihood and his family.

And God allows it.

“’But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face’. The Lord said to Satan, ‘Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.’” (Job 1:11-12)

RESPONDING TO ANGUISH

That doesn’t seem fair at all. Job is a blameless man, loves God and is striving to walk closely with Him, and his life is seemingly up for grabs.

Wouldn’t it seem reasonable for Job to respond with anger?

Wouldn’t it seem natural for him to lash out at God in the midst of his grief?

Don’t we expect him to blame God for allowing pain to enter his life?

But, Job responds in a way that catches me by surprise every time I read it.

“At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.’ In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrong-doing.” (Job 1:20-22)

Did you catch that? After hearing the news, he falls to his knees in worship.

Don’t get me wrong, he feels his loss deeply and acknowledges the pain swirling around in his soul.

Job is still a human. He still feels the pain deeply in his heart. Upon hearing that his family is gone, he jumps up in surprise and is struck with misery. He’s so torn apart that he tears his own clothes and shaves his head as a sign of sorrow.

But he praises God with his whole heart and acknowledges the sovereignty of the Lord.

I sit here trying to imagine myself in his situation and wonder how in the world he immediately praises God as soon as he heard that his entire family was killed.

And I think it was because Job realized who he was and who God was.

Job coped with intense pain because he had a faith and hope that was rooted so much deeper than anything human emotion could penetrate. He lived his life in complete surrender to God and that didn’t get altered or taken back when something devastating happened in his life.

It only intensified his devotion to God’s will and sovereignty.

He knew that his life belonged to the Lord and that the only way to get through the hopelessness was to praise the One who brings hope.

He understood that the only way to walk through the sting of death was to bow down to the One who had the power over death.

Job understood that God is a generous God and gives lavishly to His children. Job wasn’t clinging tightly to the things that he owned, even the people in his life.

The thing that he clung onto the tightest was God. He knew that God was the One who could turn the situation around and redeem his broken life.

He walked every day with God and knew His voice well. He knew the heart of God. He knew that God wouldn’t do anything out of anger, malice or injustice and chose to fall to his knees and worship God in the midst of extreme trials.

WORSHIPPING THROUGH WEEPING

Sometimes, it’s so hard to worship God when things are going south in our lives. It’s hard to associate worship with feeling horrible, so we often opt to skip worshipping when life is hard for us.

I know I have.

But here’s what I’ve also found and what Job teaches us as the book goes on.

God is faithful. God is just. God is loving. God is powerful.

And worshipping Him when we feel at our lowest actually increases our capacity to deal with the worst parts of life and gives us something to fight back with.

When we respond in worship, in complete surrender to God, a powerful exchange of his hope, peace and joy is deposited into our lives. He is the one to lift us up when we crash and hit rock bottom.

He’s the one to redeem our lives when all seems lost.

“I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” (Psalm 40:1-2)

 “I lift my eyes up to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip.” (Psalm 121:1-3) 

But our relationship with God and our praise to God isn’t like a light switch, where we only turn it on high when things are going well and we “feel” like praising God.

He wants more for us than that. He wants to stretch our souls to be focused on Him and to trust Him completely, even if every good thing were taken away from us today.

He wants to build the heart of a worshipping warrior in us.

He wants us to be an unstoppable force for Him and the most common thing God uses to grow us is difficulties. He uses them to chisel away the parts of our hearts that are broken and misshapen and rebuilds us piece by piece.

What difficulties are surrounding your life? What crucibles are you walking through? When the pain sets in and the situation feels unbearable, be encouraged in the hope of our Savior.

When life knocks you to your knees, look up, don’t give up.

Don’t be afraid to worship through tears, through clouded eyes, because those are the times when God will use those tears to water your soul to grow something beautiful.

Allie

ameade@b4church.org