Worship Him

“20 Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. 21 He said, 

22 In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God. (Job 1)

Job has just learned that all ten of his precious children have been crushed. His response…

He worships.

Not the usual reaction one might have when catastrophic news has been received, not even when the news is just a little daunting. But Job worshipped in his grief — falling to his knees before God and, rather than cast blame, praised Him.

Job recognized that God was not absent in his suffering; thus, he chose to praise the One who was very present, even through pain.

I have a new friend named Kara Tippetts. I met her several months ago when I was reading inspirational writer Ann Voskamp’s blog. Ann had included a piece written by Kara entitled “Dear Brittany” — a letter composed and posted in an attempt to encourage a young woman in Oregon named Brittany Maynard who was suffering from a rare and very painful brain tumor. Brittany was planning her own suicide, and Kara wrote to her,

Suffering is not the absence of goodness, it is not the absence of beauty, but perhaps it can be the place where true beauty can be known…Know Jesus… [H]astening death was never what God intended. But in our dying, He does meet us with His beautiful grace.

Kara didn’t reach out merely with sympathy, but with empathy…

Sharing a similar pain as Brittany’s in her own heart… her own body.

Kara, too, is suffering from late stage cancer — facing, void a miracle, a certain death. But she chooses to write about living — about seeing God show up time and time again in her mundane days to make them extraordinary. (See  www.mundanefaithfulness.com — and her book The Hardest Peace — Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life’s Hard)

I recently traveled to hear Kara share her story.  Never before have I heard one speak so graciously from a  personal place of pain — evidence of grace received, as well as a testimony  that we all can be ‘agents of God’s grace’…

Yes — even IN suffering.

I believe the key for both Job and for Kara is…

Worship!

Both knew there was beauty and comfort to be found in the sacrifice of praise, and in worshipping God in the midst of pain. Both found Him present in their suffering.

Kara finds Him there still — living in as well as living out the grace God gives — proclaiming, ‘…to live is Christ, to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).

Worship has been defined as,

An expression of great gratitude, respect and adoration that is both costly and heartfelt (O. Fulghum).

How are you worshipping God, even in the midst of painful or difficult circumstances? How might you discover through the sacrifice of praise that grace is near — to be grasped and to be given… Yes, even IN suffering?