The Lord be Praised

Job 1:1-3:26

1 Corinthians 14:1-17

Psalm 37:12-29

Proverbs 21:25-26

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised." Job 1:21

I am a worship leader. I have been given the responsibility of leading people into worship who are having really good days and are ready to worship. And I have been given the responsibility of leading people who are deep in grief, who are suicidal...people who are not ready to worship. And if I were Job I would have asked for someone else to lead worship that Sunday, because I would not be ready to worship, I would certainly not be ready to lead anyone else in worship. And yet here Job is worshipping.

But again, I do not want to glorify the human characters of the Bible. And so though I'm not sure I would so matter-of-factly and so instantly have said "may the name of the Lord be praised" if I were in Job's position, I can see how he got there.

There is something holy about moments of profound grief. The moment when nothing is in your control...the moment when you have no option but to surrender...it has been surrendered for you. There is something holy about those moments because it is in those moments when you have nothing left to look at but God. For Job, everything was whisked away in a flash... and he saw God.

Later he gets cloudy and fuzzy and grief takes over him...or else this story would be ridiculously fake. Depression makes it hard to see God, but loss doesn't necessarily. And in that moment of loss Job saw that God was in control. And that's what he said.

A God so in control is awesome. A God so in control is praiseworthy.

I don't know why terrible things happen. But if it results in a heart crying out "may the name of the Lord be praised," then it is so worth it. Because one day everything will be whisked away...we will be whisked away and we will see God. An awesome praiseworthy God who has always been in control. And we will praise Him, in this life or in the next.