The power of worship

After a few physical hard days with dragging my two young kids up and down to bring their older brother to school and back home 3 times per day with a 7-month pregnant body, I felt completely weary. I told my husband I really needed to lay down after dinner because my back was hurting. So I went to bed and fell asleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night feeling less tired physically but spiritually drained. I sat on the sofa feeling a bit sorry for myself and started singing: ¨ Hallelujah, You have won the victory, Hallelujah, you have won it all for me.¨ As I was singing the Holy Spirit kept prompting me to keep on going and my slow defeating singing slowly transitioned to singing and moving my body, singing and beating my hands on my legs to make a beat and then in full worship in awe feeling God's presence and restoration of my energy and joy.

This was not the first time this happened. It wasn't a coincidence that I started worshiping the Lord by singing in my moment of feeling defeated. It was something the Lord had revealed to me months ago that had sunken so deep in my heart and has been part of my daily worship ever since.

That during difficult times:

He is still good

worthy of my praise

and I get to choose joy.

Months ago in the first trimester of my pregnancy I was laying on my bed for a minute or two feeling utterly exhausted. I slumped off my bed and dragged myself to the hallway to be met with the pile of laundry. I heard by kids playing and knew I had to get their lunch ready. As I stood there looking at the laundry, I asked God: ¨ How am I ever going to keep on doing this?¨ He immediately answered: : ¨ The joy of the Lord is my strength.¨ I kept standing there as I meditated on those words for a moment and then decided that I would just start singing and dancing. And I did. As I forced my body to worship the Lord, I felt my singing and dancing transition to true worship and received a complete restoration of my energy. I went to the kitchen with a huge smile on my face, feeling amazing, and got started on lunch. It was the first time of many times.

The Lord had taught me something valuable, and I felt strongly that it was the day to share this with you.

Whenever I heard those words: ¨ The joy of the Lord is my strength, I always assumed it meant that God would give me joy and strength in hard times. What the Lord had revealed to me at that moment is that all things good and beautiful come from Him and have a purpose. Joy is an emotion we can choose to have. We can train ourselves to seek the good in every circumstance and be more joyful, and THAT gives us strength from God. Sometimes you have to get it started yourself, like adding coal to a steam train to get it moving, but the Lord will bless it and make it grow.

In the bible in Nehemiah 7 it talks about how, after they had rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and the doors had been set in place, Ezra (the priest) grabbed the book of the Law of God and read it to the people and explained to them what it meant. The people weaped as they listened (They may have thought about all they did wrong to have disobeyed God) but then Nehemiah says: “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

The bible then continues to say: ¨ Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.¨

So before I continue, I want to make something clear:

We don't worship the Lord because we want to feel good. We worship the Lord because He IS good and ALL the work we do is worship to Him and should be done with a thankful and joy filled heart, but joy is sometimes far to be found yet can always be accessed when we learn to live a life of worship. And that will give us strength from God to do the things we need to do.

Proverbs 17:22 says, : ¨ A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.¨

The Lord doesn't promise an easy life. He promises that we will have hardship, but when we truly understand His ways, we will see that He has also given us every tool we need to come out victorious.

All for His glory.

A photo of my son and myself after we had washed ourselves in the ocean before church because we were homeless. (Sleeping in our car on a camping ground) Photo taken in 2021.