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As a result of the underwhelming response to my previous article I thought I might take up a topic that is more universal. I dare say that nearly everyone whose eyes will read these words has experienced suffering and pain of some sort in their lives or will before their life is over. I am not trying to play the role of a masochist here. I am normally a "glass half full" kind of guy. Yet lately I have had probing, confounding thoughts about, to quote C.S. Lewis, "the problem of pain." (No, I haven't read the book…Just quoting the title.) As a worshiper what do you do with suffering and pain? There are many unofficial doctrines of suppression that prevail among our churches. Sayings like, "You gotta praise your way out… Leave your troubles behind you and just praise the Lord…" From my experience what statements like that really mean is, "Pretend like you have no troubles put on a false self and act like everything is great…" When someone asks you how you are doing you respond only by saying, "Blessed and highly favored…"

My question is why would we check our emotions and circumstances at the door as we approach God in worship? I don't buy all of that, by the way…All of the false self and denial of adverse circumstances. I speak fairly harshly of it. I call it lying. How can we stand before a holy God to worship Him while not even being honest with ourselves, let alone Him? Presumably, we lie. The strange thing is He knows we are lying, we know we are lying and we know He knows we are lying. Yet we persist. In my estimation this is what happens. We come before God to worship him but are not bringing every facet of ourselves to Him and therefore we do not worship in truth (Jn 4). God is truth. There is nothing false in Him. Our worship is hindered and perhaps not wholly received at all because any false thing would, by the essence of the true nature of God be (at least) reflected back on us to bear out what is untrue in us. Why do we bother with such antics? To appear that we have everything together in our lives…? To carry on with an air of spiritual elitism…? The lack of transparency and honesty and ability to reckon with the problem of pain is opposite of true biblical worship. It doesn't take long at all to find transparent and honest worship in the scriptures. You don't even need a concordance. Just look to the Psalms. Take Psalm 25:16-17 for example. "…Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish…" These are honest statements from an honest heart seeking to honor God with worship from his heart. I must give kudos to Southern Gospel music for holding to the truth that we have a Burden Bearer. Tried and true songs with lyrics like, "Leave them there, leave them there, take your burdens to the Lord and leave them there…" and more recently the GVB and Christ Church Choir recorded "When Jesus lifts the Load" just to name a couple tunes. In fact, consider this excerpt taken from an article in Charisma magazine. It is an exchange between Gloria Gaither and a room full of worship leaders and songwriters at GMA week a few years back.

After some 250 writers, publishers and others had gotten comfortable for the session, she asked them: "How many of you are involved in praise and worship? Either you write praise and worship, you lead a team, publish, or record praise and worship." Almost all the audience members raised their hands. So she asked a second question: "How many of you, who obviously spend your life in praise and worship, have read First and Second Kings in the last two years?" Three hands went up. Gloria leaned forward. "Then what right have you to go through the Psalms to pick out a few positive lines here and there?" she asked. "Because most of the Psalms is beating the chest and lament and 'I don't know if God exists' and 'I don't know where He went' and 'I don't know if He loves me.' Finally the psalmist resolves a few things-and we'll find one little line and have it on the screen by Sunday morning. But what right have you to take his line that he paid for if you don't know what he paid to get it there?" Praise, she tells them, has to be the outcome of a "gut-living life and is sincerely real for those who have tried it on the caldron of pain and survived. When that happens, you will praise Him," she told a now-rapt audience. "You can't stop it. But to just walk in on Sunday morning and start with the punch line? I don't think you have the right…"

What it comes down to is that if we withhold our pain and our suffering from our worship we rob God. Scripture says that "You are not your own, you were bought at a price." Though the context of that passage is honoring God with our bodies I believe the principle remains. God purchased us in Christ body, soul, mind and spirit. We are His entirely. If we refuse to bring our suffering and pain to Him in worship we do not honor the divine transaction. If we are to worship the Lord in truth we must bring our all. If we bring to Him only what we consider to be our best it is prideful and still isn't good enough anyway. He purchased our all and will settle for no less. There is no humility in just bringing your best to God. He bought our sin, regret, shame…ALL of it. We are humbled by the ugliness of life, the shameful, the weakness, the suffering. Bring your pain, whatever its source, to God in worship. Refuse its rule over your life and be free.

Aaron Unthank
http://www.aaronunthank.com

Reader Comments

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your comments! Diane, we've talked about this stuff a thousand times... Kristen, uncertainties are a huge part of life in Christ. They have to be... We serve the LORD who is infinitely more than we can ever imagine. I would say pain, curiosity and uncertainty have to be a part of serving Him. I am very sympathetic to your need to ask why. I have always been that kind of person. I just need to know why. When I was a kid that always used to get me in trouble. "Because I said so..." didn't cut it for me. I sincerely wanted to understand something and wanted to know why. I'm still that way...and...it still gets me in trouble from time to time. BUT, it also keeps me stiving after the knowledge of God!

Keith,
Thank you for your response. It appears there are a few doctrinal issues that we may differ on that are not appropriate to discuss in this venue but I will say that, if I understood your response correctly, you have made some presumptions that missed the heart of what the article was about. I'm not entirely sure I understand your opening statement,

"Your comments are basically a mischaracterization of what goes on in churches that use praise and worship music (usually Pentecostal and Charismatic churches), and are made simply to build up in pride the fact that you like Southern Gospel music..."

What you call a mischaracterization is, in fact, a mistaken word choice or this topic is something you are inadequately informed about outside of your own experience. I have worked on staffs of and traveled to these types of churches for a respectable amount of time and have ministered directly to people who struggle with the sort of things mentioned in the article. This denial, of sorts, is a very real state of being in congregational life. I am thankful that your church experience seems honest and truthful in worship. Good for you... But everyone doesn't share your experience.

Your second presumption (I think) is that I "like" Southern Gospel music. By "like" I think you probably meant prefer. I do enjoy SG music...I was raised on it. Am I proud of that? Sure...But not sinfully so. This is where the monkey wrench is thrown in...SG it is not my preference in church worship. I am engaged by more eclectic and contemporary P&W;strains... Even as regular music listening goes SG is just a small portion of what is "on my iPod..." so to speak.

Please forgive me if I have misinterpreted your response. Please feel free to clarify your position if you wish to continue to dialogue about this...This is why I write an article every month. Dialogue is a precious teacher for those in Christ...

Jeff,
Thank you for your question. I think I understand you're getting at...I think it has to do w/ the nature of our confession and our perception of the sovereignty of God. First, in order to "speak something that's not as though it is..." we must first honestly confess the presence of something...Either lack, sickness, emotional unhealthiness, financial woes, etc... The statement insinuates the presence of a "something." There must be something that motivates us to speak in faith at all...Something to speak "to". Otherwise, "speaking something that is not as though it were..." could be nicely defined as denial and literally as insanity.

According to Rom 4:17 God is the only one who has the power to "...call into being that which does not exist.." I believe that many interpretations of the scripture you mentioned are presented horribly out of the context of God's supreme sovereignty. We have authority to speak in faith within the boundaries of Scripture and in the name of Christ but outside of those two things our confession is powerless.

But before any of the above type of confession, I believe, we must first be able to honestly confess our circumstance, ailment, anxiety, etc... to God to provoke Him to action. If someone knowingly goes around w/ a heart condition but says they don't or even says they are the healed of the Lord, that is lying. What would that kind of confession seem like in the audience of an unbeliever...? They have the hope of being healed but their physical state has not yet changed.

In short, lying is a denial or misrepresentation of the truth. Faith, however, is a confession in hope of a yet to be seen outcome (Heb 11:1) Faith is trust that your confession has been heard and will be acted upon in a manner that is beyond you and beyond your circumstance. If we say there is no circumstance then what do we have to hope for...?

I hope this clears up what I was getting at a bit for everyone...



Thanks,
Aaron

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