Even in This

At the risk of sounding redundant, or seeming to be ruminating on yesterdays manna ... God has been talking to me about worship again. It may have to do with the fact that I'm preparing to lead worship for our Life Group tomorrow night. For those who are wondering what a Life Group is, it's a small group from my church which meets weekly. Anyhow, God's really been speaking to me the past several days about worship, more specifically about when it's appropriate for me to worship.

Now that may seem, to some of you, to be a fairly straightforward issue. You can likely even guide me quickly to several Psalms where the psalmist admonishes us to be praising God at all times. That's the neat and tidy answer. Being a black and white person I like neat and tidy answers. The harsh reality, however, is that life sometimes doesn't present itself in neat and tidy packages.

Sure, if I stop to think about it, I can list a lot of things in the past six months for which I should (and readily could) praise God. That said, this same time frame has easily been the most difficult, most challenging time in my life. Never has my faith been as sorely tried, never has my self esteem been as battered or my mental state been as tested as in the past six months. I have frequently questioned whether God has His hand in my life and if He does, what His intentions might be.

It is in these darkest hours that I have found it the most difficult to worship God. To lift up His name and exalt Him. To praise Him for Who He is and for what He has done.

The past two days, God has been showing me first through King Nebuchadnezzar and then through Job that worship is not to be conditional on my circumstances. God brought Nebuchadnezzar to declare God's greatness not in the cradle of blessing but rather in the total estrangement from humanity. While he was in the fields eating grass with the animals, Nebuchadnezzar lifts his face to the heavens and extols the virtues of God.

Job, in the midst of trials I cannot even begin to imagine, does not turn his back on God nor does he curse God. When He challenges God to meet with Him so that he can plead his case to God, God shows up. In the latter chapters of Job, chapter 38 and following, God speaks to Job. God basically tells Job exactly where mankind sits on the continuum of created beings to deity. God explains in very succinct terms, to Job, that mankind has neither the experience nor the knowledge to begin to question God's actions. God is God and no one, regardless of how devout he or she may be is either qualified or entitled to call God's actions into question.

The psalmist writes, in Psalm 62:1, "My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him." It is in light of acknowledging God for who He is, that I can begin to echo the psalmist's words. My soul, does indeed, find rest in God alone. He is my salvation in all circumstances of my life.

Blessed be the name of the Lord!