If you are an Elevation Worship music fan, you are probably singing the lyrics to the song, “Do it again” after reading my title. This song is about believing that God will come through even when it doesn’t look like He is working, and choosing to continue to believe in the promises of God even when life is a mess. The Lord has used this song to in my life and in my heart the past couple of months, and it has brought me so much joy and freedom.
Walking around these walls, I thought by now they’d fall…
Do you ever go through trials in life and think, “surely this rough patch has got to end soon,”? You know those trials that seem to last forever, and just when you think it’s almost over, ten more trials get thrown your way.
That has been what my life has felt like the past couple of months. Without sharing every detail of my life, I will just say that there has been a tremendous amount of pain and loss. From losing family members, to families falling apart, to lost relationships… life has been tough the past couple of months to say the least.
It is a hard thing to walk through life with a hurting heart. Life is hard enough, but when you’re struggling, it feels like you’re being asked to go throughout your day with a one million pound backpack full of hurt, pain, and sorrow on your back. It’s mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting.
Around the beginning of March, I found myself completely empty and drained. I couldn’t stop crying, and I felt hopeless. Worst of all, I stopped talking to God. I felt disappointed, angry, and hurt. I couldn’t understand how a good God who loved me could allow so many hard things to be happening and I couldn’t bring myself to talk to Him. I guess part of it was because I was angry at Him, and part of it was I knew how much it was going to hurt if I truly let my heart be vulnerable before God. It felt like I was keeping all the pain in, locked behind barricades in my heart, and I was terrified of letting that barricade open. And so, for months, those barricades stayed closed, and my relationship with God became very distant.
I felt alone. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do.
I’m still in your hands
A particularly bad day at the beginning of March found me the most hopeless, devastated, and hurt I had been in probably ten years. I had been running on empty for months and I just felt completely drained. I didn’t even have it in me to pretend to have it together anymore. Thankfully the Lord was at work in my weakness, and was using all of my hurt and emptiness to bring me back to Him. (Isn’t it crazy how God is always working even when it seems like He has forgotten about you)
That night, one of my awesome, Jesus-loving friends invited me to a midweek church service with her. Everything in me tried to find an excuse not to go, but thankfully I got my butt there and was lovingly wrecked by the Lord.
My heart will sing your praise again
As worship started, I felt tears welling up behind my eyes, but I managed to keep those tears down. But as the last song on the worship playlist started, I heard those beginning beats to the song “Do it again,” and I couldn’t stop a couple of tears from falling.
I got through the first couple of lines, but when I sang the lyrics, “my heart will sing your praise again,” I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Everything in me wanted to believe that I would sing God’s praise again, but it felt like I hadn’t been able to worship in so long. I felt God telling me to release everything to Him, and for the first time in months, I let the pain come out, and man, did it pour out. As the tears flowed, I felt months of hurt, sadness, disappointment, and fear come out. I felt like my heart was releasing everything that it had been holding onto. I sobbed and sang, and sobbed and sang. I looked like a raccoon at the end of the song, but I felt free for the first time in a really long time.
It’s the best feeling in the world when you feel Jesus come close, especially after long periods in spiritual deserts. And in that moment, I felt the Lord come and wrap His loving arms around me and hold me so close. My heart felt like it could finally breathe.
Keep me within your love
Since that moment, the Lord has been doing so much work in my heart and teaching me so many things. I have felt so many walls get released in my heart, and have found so much more freedom in that process. While it is still not easy for me to automatically turn to the Lord with my hurts, it is something that by God’s grace, is getting slightly more natural. When I feel my heart starting to hold something in, I ask God to help me release it to Him and to hold me while I let the hurt flow out.
James 4:8 Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.
Our God is a God of intimacy. He wants us to come close. We are His precious children, whom He dearly loves. He wants to hold us. He desires to heal our pain and hurt. He longs to love us. He wants nothing more than for us to find hope and healing in Him.
But God can’t heal our pain if we are determined to keep it all to ourselves. We must release our hurt and our pain to Him and let Him heal us. He can handle our hurt and he longs to do it. Let your heart walls down and let God move in close and hold your heart.
Your promise still stands, great is Your faithfulness
The Lord has also been teaching me a lot about holding fast onto His promises and clinging to Him. During the rough months, it felt like I was grasping at straws to make my heart feel better. I was putting expectations on people in my life to fix my pain and would get frustrated with myself when I couldn’t shake the tears away. It seemed like everything and everyone was failing me, and that made me feel resentful and angry towards everyone.
No human can be your lifesaver when you are drowning. No matter how wonderful of a human they are, they are simply not designed to keep you afloat.
Psalm 54:4 Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.
While no human can pull us from floodwaters, the Lord surely can. The Lord is our sustainer. The Lord is our helper. The Lord is our lifeboat. When the waters overtake us, our only job is to cling onto Jesus and let Him pull us out of the flood. We are not meant to save ourselves. No matter how fast we swim, we will inevitably tire out from trying to save ourselves. The Lord will never tire. The Lord will never fail. Cling to Him, our hope and our safety, and let him save you.
I’ve seen you move the mountains, and I believe I’ll see you do it again
It is easy to worship when you are in mountaintop seasons of life. It isn’t hard to remember the faithfulness of the Lord or all of the blessings He has given you when everything is smooth sailing in life. And while I love the mountaintops just as much as the next person, the truth is that life is full of valleys. And if we want enduring faith that isn’t shaken by the storms of life, we must learn to worship and believe the promises of God in the valleys.
It is easy to start doubting God’s goodness, faithfulness, and even His love in the valleys… How could God let this happen? Does God not hear my prayers? Where is God? Why isn’t He doing anything to make this better?… These are often our thoughts in the tough seasons, and if we aren’t careful, the enemy will use these to harden our hearts towards God and pull us away from Him.
But if we choose to go to God with our doubts and questions, and surrender them to Him with a worshipful heart, the outcome will be so different. God can handle our doubts, and God can even handle our anger and frustration towards Him. In fact, the best place to leave those feelings is at the feet of God. When we lay everything at His feet, we surrender it to Him, trusting that He is working even though it may not seem like it. We choose to continue to believe that He is our good, good Father who is working everything together for our good and His glory, even in the crummiest of life situations. We remember His promises, promises that He will never leave us or forsake us, and choose to believe that His character does not change even when our life circumstances do. We remember everything He has done for us in the past and wait for our deliverance to come again.
Waiting for change to come, knowing the battle’s won
The Lord never promised us a pain free life. In fact, He told us that we would have plenty of trials and lots of suffering in our lives. But as believers, we have a hope in the midst of chaos. We know that the ultimate battle has already been fought, and that the Lord has won. This gives our souls a reason to rejoice even in the lowest of valleys and it is one of our greatest gifts as children of God.
John 16:33
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Life is really hard sometimes, and if you are in a valley right now, I would encourage you to bring your pain before the Lord and let Him work in your pain. Cling tightly to the Lord and sing God’s promises to your heart. The Lord is always at work in our lives, whether we see it or not. He is our good, good father who desires to come close and hold us in our valleys. Let the Lord in and let Him love you like never before.
Alex's Thoughts 