Worship In The In-Between
Do you ever get frustrated when answers don’t come? Maybe not but I sure do. Humans…we want what we want when we want it; maybe that’s just a part of our selfish “always about me” unconscious attitude. If you asked any of us if we were selfish most would deny such a nasty attribute.
But then why do we find ourselves welling up with impatience and feel frustrated when the answer we so desperately want isn’t showing up? Why do we lose our resilience in the in-between of questions and answers?
I’m more than sure there are a lot of reasons for this. One I would like to address is the one the Holy Spirit tapped on my shoulder and talked to me about…worship. It’s easy to worship when we feel good, have a pile of money or are on the high of a much-needed answer to prayer. Then there are the times the answer is seemingly NOT coming, we feel like giving up and we are just plain tired of all of it.
A principle we must learn to embrace is to worship IN the in-between of our needs and His supply, our issue and His solution, our cry and His soothing touch. If you’ve ever read the book of Job, first of all congrats that is a tuff book to navigate! But what I love is all through his horrible ordeal Job wrestles with his friends in his pain and in the end comes to the conclusion “Though He slay me, yet will I praise Him…” Job 13:15.
Jobs friends try to come up with the “why” of his problem and Job realizes the why isn’t the issue. God is unfathomable and beyond our understanding. BUT he decided to worship and trust him in the in-between, in-between understanding what had happened and knowing why it happened AND waiting for God’s restoration. Whew…
Katherine Wolf says is perfectly…”But worship in its purest form doesn’t happen when everything comes perfectly together; it’s most powerful when everything is falling apart.” True worship comes from a heart that understands God is worthy of it. We don’t worship because of what he gives us but because of who he is period.
Job questions, reasons and argues for forty chapters and comes to realize God is good, he is worthy and Job doesn’t need to understand it all he just needs to trust and wait. I hate that part. Waiting…but it’s in the waiting that our selfish desires and unchristlike behaviors are crucified and yes that hurts. Anything that dies causes pain. Pain can be the most hated and the best thing we can embrace.
David repeats this theme all throughout the Psalms. He is depressed and cries out in complaint to God over and over only to come full circle and worship him in the in-between. Saul comes into a cave that David is in and he could have easily killed him and taken the throne he was anointed for. But he chose to wait in the in-between until God would give him that throne. He died to his own way and leaned into God’s perfect timing. #lessons
The strength that we need in the in-between is only found in worship. We won’t find it when we complain, or cry or get frustrated. It’s when we “feel” all of those things but decide to take a deep breath and exhale those feelings and relax in God’s arms that we find peace in the waiting. In the waiting is when the space between begins to wear thin…
The lyrics to Hillsong’s “Another In The Fire” say it all…
“There is another in the fire
Standing next to me
There is another in the waters
Holding back the seas
And should I ever need reminding
What power set me free
There is a grave that holds no body
And now that power lives in me
And I can see the light in the darkness
As the darkness bows to Him
I can hear the roar in the heavens
As the space between wears thin
I can feel the ground shake beneath us
As the prison walls cave in
Nothing stands between us
There is no other name
But the Name that is Jesus
He who was and still is
And will be through it all
So come what may in the space between
All the things unseen and this reckoning
I know I will never be alone”