What to Do When God Feels Silent | How to Trust Him in Hard Times

This is the power of Christian lament. This is what David is teaching us. Right? It's real because it was real for him. It recognizes that God hasn't changed even if everything else around us has. He is the same yesterday, today, and will be forevermore. Amen? And because of that, we can trust that God will always have a way forward for us even even if we can't see it. And so because of that, we get to learn how to sing anyway. [00:28:39] (31 seconds)  #ChristianLamentPower

Guys, if we're gonna move forward in life and faith, we need to realize that when life is hard, we must we must turn our sorrow into a song. And here's why. Worship fundamentally changes us. Yeah. It does. It, like, reorients our focus. Right? It repositions the very posture of our heart. It reconnects us with God's presence, and it releases us from that very thing that we've been holding onto so tightly. Right? Because it's nearly impossible to focus on the things that are coming at us in life when our focus is on worshiping God. [00:32:34] (44 seconds)  #TurnSorrowIntoSong

So no matter what is happening, guys, we can turn our sorrow into a song because we can trust in the unfailing love of God who has anointed each one of us as his loved sons and daughters. We can rejoice even in our pain because we know the salvation that is promised to us. We can sing the Lord's praise because we can remember. We can remember that God has always been good to us. And because of this, because of that reality in our lives, even if nothing changes, we can still make a choice. We can choose to trust in him. [00:28:00] (39 seconds)  #TrustGodDespiteCircumstances

Right? Lament is what we do when what we believe about God doesn't actually line up with our our lived experience in life. But instead of walking away, turning away, we actually bring that tension to the feet of Jesus. We lay it right there at his feet. In other words, lament allows us to hold that mismatch before God and say, here it is, Lord. Here it is. This is yours. I I can't do this. Here it is. [00:15:08] (34 seconds)  #BringYourTensionToJesus

But, guys, David is teaching us something that is so very important. The relationship that god wants to have with you and with me, it's it's not like the genie in the bottle. It's not like this cosmic dictator who's just out there somewhere wagging his finger at us, maybe smiling and laughing when we make a mistake when we're hurting. No. God wants to be your perfect father. He wants to be your perfect father who is inviting us into a deeply intimate relationship with him. [00:24:59] (37 seconds)  #GodOurPerfectFather

But here's the thing. What we need to realize, every single one of us, what we need to realize is that it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to not be okay. Like, we gotta know that our struggles, the things that we struggle with, they're not unique to us. Like, we're not the only ones that are facing that. Every single one of us goes through valleys. Like, not one of us can possibly live on the mountaintop at all times. [00:13:36] (28 seconds)  #ItsOkayToNotBeOkay

Right? He knew that he was anointed to be the king and and all the good stuff that comes along with it. But right now, he's hiding out in a cave fearing for his life, feeling abandoned, feeling alone. So he has no idea what's gonna happen next. He just had to live with the unknown future as he lived in the very known pain of the present. That was David's reality. [00:19:43] (23 seconds)  #DavidInTheCave

As he writes this, I could just see him stuck in that cave in that dark and gloomy mess just wondering, is Saul right around the corner? Are they coming for me right now? Nothing has changed around David, but everything has changed in him. Yeah? Because he discovered his song in the chaos. His circumstance remained the same in the short term, but his posture stayed focused on worship. His posture stayed focused on God almighty. Yeah? [00:27:26] (33 seconds)  #FoundSongInChaos