The Highest Form of Praise

It was an early Sunday morning when I lost my second child.  Hours later while the world slowly roused itself from sleep to the rosy rays of a new day, my world grew only darker.

The endocrinologist had given me the sad news earlier in the week as he read off a test results' declining numbers.  It was just a matter of "when," not "if" the pregnancy terminated.  Like most mothers-to-be, I prayed against the odds that this baby would live, prayed against hopelessness and barrenness until this morning when there was no more reason to pray.

What to do next was simple--it was Sunday.  On Sunday, husband and I always worship at our local church.  And so, we dressed and drove there in silence.

I can still visualize myself that day singing the hymns and praise choruses with my Christian family.  It was almost an out of body experience where I could hear my voice singing the words, but I did not feel them in my heart.

A few tears slipped silently down my upturned face as husband held me intentionally close.  No one knew, no one mourned but the two of us. In that moment, I could feel my stoic husband holding me up as if letting go might break us both.  I remember consciously asking God to accept these songs of praise as a sacrifice for Him, one I offered in my brokenness even if I could not offer a heart of joy.

Last month, I relived this moment as I watched our church's music minister leading the congregation in worship even though his mother had died earlier that morning, the second parent he had lost in a month's time.  

My eldest daughter later asked me, "Why didn't he just take off? Have someone else fill in for him?"

"What else would he do?" I replied.  "She was already gone, so there's nothing he could really do that couldn't wait.  Besides, when you're hurting, there's no place more comforting than worshiping God with your brothers and sisters who love you."

It sounds crazy--to give praise to God when we're hurting the most.  And yet, that is where the most peace can be found. 

2 Samuel gives one well-known example of this type of worship in Scripture.

The prophet Nathan told King David that his son conceived in sin with Bathsheba would die.  David repented and mourned for six days, begging God to change His mind.  In fact, he mourned so deeply that when the child died on the seventh day, Scripture says "the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, 'Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!'" (2 Sam. 12:18).

King David figured out that the whispers could only mean one thing, and upon learning the truth of his son's death, he "arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped" (2 Sam. 12:20).

He worshiped.

In Lynn Austin's newest historical fiction book entitled Keepers of the Covenant, she says, "We show our faith in God when we keep moving forward even when our prayers aren't being answered.  It's the highest form of praise to keep believing that God is good even when it doesn't seem that way" (p. 35).

More than any book I've read over the past year, this text displays the need for hope in the midst of doubt and loss.  Time and again, Austin demonstrates how we must choose to worship God, to have faith in God, even when we can't see the good in the horrific events that happen in our lives.

Keepers of the Covenant tracks the life of the prophet Ezra as he must lead the Jewish remnant living in Babylon back home to Jerusalem.  Austin begins with King Xerxes' decree that all Jews be slaughtered and takes us through the fall-out of this battle on the 13th day of Adar, which the Jews celebrate as "Purim."

After the death of his own brother at the hands of the Gentiles, Ezra must choose to worship God or to allow the bitterness to mark his family and witness in the community.  Ultimately, he must choose the path of forgiveness, to trust God in the midst of heartache.

Austin puts it best when she says, "If we deny God, our lives aren't worth living" (p. 467).

Nowhere is this more true than when we are suffering.  It is then that we need faith more than ever before.  I believe it is also then that our worship is the sweetest because it is not given out of our excess but in our lack.

It is in those lowest points when we realize we have absolutely nothing to offer God but our brokenness, our insufficiency, our need--these are the times we must choose to praise Him anyway...for He is worthy of our worship and praise. 

Why We Read Every Last Page

I'll admit I have my favorite passages, those stories from my childhood that I am drawn to because I can visualize them (usually with Charlton Heston playing the part of Moses).  Then, there are those verses and books that are difficult, the kind that make me run rough hands through unruly curls, rub my throbbing temples, and sigh at the ceiling.

When it comes to the pages of Scripture, we all have our favorite and our not-so-favorite chapter and verse.  My father loves Revelation and anything prophetic.  I, on the other hand, am a people person and cultural analyst at heart, so I prefer the histories found in the Kings and Chronicles.

Yet, even though we have our favorite passages, that doesn't mean we're excused from studying the entire Word of God, yes, even if we think some passages are "too hard" or not really pertinent to us since God was speaking to the Jews and not us Gentiles.

Our perception of The Bible is often times warped.  Looked at one way, the tome does seem pretty big.  In fact, if a person were to drop a Bible on his toe, he you might think God sure said an awful lot.  But if one stops to consider that God fit the history of several thousand years into the Old Testament alone and then skipped 400 years between testaments before presenting the life of Jesus and the early church in the New Testament, well, that reveals a pretty small book, considering, an author God who just gives the highlights.

The Bible does mince words. Thus, when we pick and choose which passages we would like to study and ignore the rest, we don't know what we're missing out on.

My studies just this past week reminded me of how important it is for me to let Scripture interpret Scripture, to continue building a knowledge base of each book so I can better understand the other books, whether individually or in their totality.

Back in September of 2011, I was studying the book of Ezra.  In one post, I wrote on the exiles who rebuilt the temple, then celebrated after the new temple's foundation was built.  In the midst of that celebration, the returned exiles who had seen the former temple wept: "Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people" (Ez. 3:12-13).

While some of the weeping was due to happiness over this restoration, many tears were because of how ordinary this temple foundation was in comparison to the luxurious original built by Solomon and because even when physically restored, God's presence was not residing within the holy of holies as He once had.

This concept of disappointment is confirmed when later at the temple's completion, God spoke through the prophet Haggai: "'Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it seem to you like nothing in comparison?'" (Hag. 2:3).

This is what I understood at the time.  But because I had not yet studied the book of Ezekiel in depth, I missed another important reason why these exiles may have been crying. 

In the latter half of Ezekiel's prophecy, God gives a vision of His glory returning to a future temple.  In chapters 40-42, He even takes Ezekiel on a guided tour of that temple, wherein a man with a measuring rod reveals the height, width, and length of each wall in intricate detail, describing the gates, windows, courts, chambers, rooms, etc.  This future temple would be a huge complex, much larger than even Solomon's temple in all its glory.

Then, after receiving this blueprint, God says, "As for you, son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the plan. If they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the house, its structure, its exits, its entrances, all its designs, all its statutes, and all its laws. And write it in their sight, so that they may observe its whole design and all its statutes and do them" (Ez. 43:10).

Here, God invites Ezekiel to share this vision of the "new temple" with those exiles who are with him in Babylon, those who have yet to be released by King Cyrus to go back home. 

Surely, some of these same people who heard of this future temple expected that this prophecy would be fulfilled in their lifetime.  Surely, when Cyrus allowed them to return to Jerusalem and gave orders for the temple rebuilt, they believed the temple built with their hands would be the magnificent one from Ezekiel's vision.

Yet, it wasn't.  Clearly.  In fact, it wasn't even as big as the temple King Solomon had built.  And so, they wept.

As such, their tears were not merely because they were looking back in sorrow over what once was and was no longer but also because they were looking forward in sorrow.  Anyone who had heard the detailed blueprint in Ezekiel's prophecy would immediately realize that this smaller temple could never be the one in the vision that saw God's glory return, never to leave again.

And so, their weeping was in the knowledge that God's promise to dwell with them forever was still far off because of their sin.

This revelation may not seem earth shattering, maybe not even important.  But, it spoke to me of how we should mourn.

Presently, Christians seem to want to mourn our present state by looking backwards to the "good ole days."  We mourn a country, a people who aren't as holy, as God-fearing as they were "back then."  Yet, instead of looking backwards all the time, I believe we should be looking forwards and mourning because of the holiness to come promised through the prophets, a time that seems so far from us at times.  

Both types of mourning require us to look at our sin, repent, and look to Christ.  However, looking backwards tends to focus more on people and their accomplishments as we wish we could be more like they were whereas looking forward tends to keep our focus more on God, His perfection, and His promises to come.  Whether we keep our hope in the past or in the future is important.

Had I said the book of Ezekiel was too difficult, too controversial, or too elusive to grasp completely, I would have missed the simple message God had planned for me.  It's a word of encouragement to all of us.  Even though we may prefer to read something else, God says to study His Word, and that means all of it.  

Who knows what simple truth He may have hiding for us in those favorite passages, perhaps little nuggets of life-altering wisdom that we'll never receive unless we veer from the well-worn path into the wilderness of those unknown books.  We may just find a missing piece we never knew we were looking for.


Image: from Derek Griz' blog, calling to Christians to read the Bible through in one year.