Well I'm glad you asked these great questions. I have the magic answer: You Worship God. I can tell you from experience that when I am feeling down and out, the quickest and surest way to get out of my funk is to just starting singing the songs of Zion.
Listen, God loves us. God wants nothing but for us to be happy. But sometimes, things happen. Life is an emotional roller coaster. But the one constant in our life is the Love the Christ has for us. Everything that happens, whether it's negative or positive, will ALWAYS work out for our God. (Romans 8:28) It may not be the immediate or foreseeable feature. But, that's a promise that the Word of God gives us. But I would be naive if I didn't acknowledge the fact that it still sucks when bad things happen in life. Like sucks A TON.
It's at these moments however, where God really needs to shine in your hearts. There are sooo many great things that God has blessed us each with and we need to be thankful for that because the cliche holds true: it could ALWAYS be worse.
It's at these moments that you, as a creation of God, need to extol him. Need to thank Him for all he did for your life. This is called the "sacrifice of Worship." When you are feeling down, sing. When you are feeling depressed, sing. When you are feeling suicidal, sing. I guarantee that if what you are singing is coming from the heart, you will get out of that funk. In Psalm 22:3, the Bible tells us that God "inhabits the praises of His people." Now it doesn't say that we have to be in the best mood when we praise. Quite frankly, a lot of the times that I end up having to lead Praise & Worship in church or when I have to have my mini praise session, I don't feel like it. The devil was getting to me, attack ing my soul. But the beauty is that as long as I'm praising, extolling God, he will inhabit it.
Now what does inhabit mean? It means to dwell, to live in. Where will he dwell in? In our hearts. To calm the storms of our life for that moment. Notice I didn't say permanently, but he will give us that peace that surpasses understanding. Like out of nowhere, we will feel amazing. Don't believe me, I have 2 great examples. One personal and one testimony.
I don't know if all my readers know, but one of the things I pride myself in, is directing Gospel Choirs. My senior year of college I directed 2 choirs, one at school and one at church. So, in essence, music is my life. But this story comes from one of the choir members in the school choir who was a Sophomore for the 2011-2012 school year. This was her first year in the choir after a rough freshman year filled with heartbreaks and disappointments. And it's safe to say that she was having a rough relationship with God.
So she joined the choir after seeing us perform during the 2010-2011 school year (her Freshman year & my first year directing the choir) the next year having those thoughts looming around in her head. For the first half of Fall 2011 she was still down, still having a plethora of thoughts running through her head constantly asking God: "Why? Why? Why?" But, the more she sacrificed or forced herself to sing, the more peace she started to feel about it. The situation in itself wasn't necessarily getting better, but she was gaining that It is Well With my Soul peace. By the end of her Sophomore year, I'm sure she will tell you that forcing herself to praise God even though she didn't feel like it, realllly reallllly helped her. Because God inhabited her praise.
For me, my one of many examples came from my Senior Year of College. Where the school choir was scheduled to perform that morning and I rolled out of bed completely in the wrong spirit. I legitimately rolled out of the wrong side of bed. And when I direct, I don't just stand there and move my arms, I have energy, I engage the listeners and hype up the singers. But that day...I just didn't feel like it and I know people could tell on my face.
So, the rehearsal right before the we sang i was just flat. And when the actually moment came for us to sing our first few songs I was out of it. I grabbed the mic started engaging the audience, and it was just....flat. So I just stopped trying and just focused on the choir. But the longer the service went the better I was solely starting to feel. We sang approx... 3 songs and then the speaker for the morning spoke who was amazing by the way. By the time the speaker was done speaking, I started to feel the Spirit but I needed that finial push. So the choir went up to sing its final song which was a simple song called In This Place. Where the main line is: "Lord have your way in this place." This song, in its simplicity never really did anything to my spirit before. But this wasn't any ordinary time.
For the first time in my life. I started crying because of the Holy Spirit. It was tears of joys. It actually had a little trouble directing and thankfully made it through it. But when it was over, I just sat in my chair and just started thanking God silently with my head buried in my hands. That was the legit moment where I felt the Spirit move the most in my life and it ironically came at the time when I felt the worst initially.
See brethren! You gotta force yourself sometimes. The Sacrifice of Worship. It's not about how you feel. It's about recognizing the sovereignty of God. That despite it all, The Lord Has Been Sooo Good to you. I'm going to end it with the first verse and chorus to one of Kirk Franklin's most famous songs (I told you that music is my life) which was actually probably his first legit hit called Why We Sing.
Someone asked the question:
Why do we sing?
When we lift our hands to Jesus;
What do we really mean?
Someone may be wondering,
When we sing our song;
At times we maybe crying
And nothings even wrong.
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I sing because I'm happy
I sing because I'm free
His eye is on the sparrow
That's the reason why I sing.
Glory Hallelujah!
You're the reason why I sing!
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