We started a new series today at North Side called “Original Blues.” So many people are dealing with depression, sadness, grief, fear, or other emotions that cripple them. The Psalms are beautiful examples of how godly people dealt with honest emotions.
We worshipped to the following songs today:
- Blessed Be Your Name – Matt Redman
- Made Me Glad – Hillsong
- Nothing Can Stop Our God – Travis Agnew (sorry – no link for this one, today was the first time it has ever been played!)
- You Never Let Go – Matt Redman
“You Never Let Go” is on the CD Everything Glorious by Passion available in the bookstore. This is easily one of my favorite worship CDs. In my goal to get some good music to put into your car CD player, this is top ten for me. You need to check this one out!
I am still trying to process all that God did today.
Jeff preached from Psalm 137 today. It’s probably the most famous imprecatory psalm. To imprecate something is to wish harm to come to it. This passage has the honest emotions of a psalmist who couldn’t worship anymore due to his circumstances. He hated the people who were making his life miserable. He wanted revenge. He wanted someone to suffer as much as he was suffering.
“How can you sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land?” That question, posed in the psalm, is the question that Jeff thinks is one of the most important in the Bible. How do you continue to trust God when the circumstances of your lives are out of control?
We can’t put God in a box. We can’t decide to trust God only in the easy moments. We can’t only worship him when life is going our way. We can’t be led by our feelings. It is a terrible mistake to live based on how you feel. I love that we have a pastor that could be as transparent as he was concerning his own depression. That honesty spoke to so many people.
I was floored at the closing of each of the three services today. Countless people came up to the front at the end to say that they were overwhelmed with the circumstances right now, and they needed God’s help. It was such a beautiful picture of the body of Christ as people, who didn’t all know each other, surrounded those people physically and with prayer to lift them up. It was a beautiful representation of Gal. 6:2 of “bear one another’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.” As people wept, there was a godly sense of our church saying to one another, “you are not alone – I am with you.”
Don’t give up. You are not alone.
Below is the clip from today’s service. Imagine God saying, don’t give up. I know it is hard, but don’t give up.
Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.
