I am at a youth retreat for my church called Isolation. I’m leading acoustic worship for these students and…. if I’m honest….. I did not want to come to this today. I’ve had an incredibly busy couple weeks and a rough couple of days. I’m tired, I’m beat up and I just wanted to stay home and sleep.

The only reason I didn’t call Bryan (youth guy, good friend and my guitar player) and tell him that I couldn’t make it was ….. well….. basically out of obligation. I didn’t want to let Bryan down.

That’s where God comes in….

Tonight was awesome….. humbling…. peaceful….. hopeful…..joyful and sorrowful….

Bryan asked me to talk to his students about worship. How do we worship and why do we worship.

I talked to them about Lazarus out of John 11. The only way I can worship God is to understand that it isn’t about me and never has been about me. It’s about Him. So much so that He lets ‘the one He loves’ (Lazarus) die for the sole purpose of being glorified through Lazarus’s ressurection.

He allowed pain… death…. sorrow…..

He also wept when He arrived to ressurect him. He loves.

I know it seems weird to talk about suffering while talking about worshipping Jesus. But, understand, I think we can’t truely worship Jesus without understanding suffering. When life is falling apart, how can we worship without understanding that truth of God? Which is that He loves us beyond measure, and would let us die so that He might be glorified in our resurrection through Him.

Powerful and heavy stuff.

I opened the worship time with the song ‘All I Can Say’ by David Crowder. The song is about suffering and admitting to God that ‘this’, the measure of praise that’s left when life is breaking, is literally all I have to give in that moment. Deep.

Students began to weep

From there we went in to ‘Came to my rescue’ affirming that when we call on Him, not only does He hear us, He answers. Re-enforced that with the the bridge from ‘Your love never fails’ and sang the truth that He works all things together for our good.

Students were now singing with passion, hope, heart and conviction. They were loud.

Finally we ended with ‘How He Loves’ by John Mark McMillan (not the Crowder version, sorry Dave!). What an incredible song… ‘He is jealous for me… If grace is an ocean we’re all sinking…. His love is like a hurricane and I am a tree bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy….’

Students sang louder than me. We kept singing until they wanted to stop. Which took a while.

beautiful. students grasping the idea that He receives the most glory when we are satisfied in Him in the midst of suffering.

In one night we went from suffering….. to hope….. to finding peace in a loving father.

I am so glad that I came. God is so amazingly good.

It is my hope that YOU, where ever you are, in whatever you’re doing, find Him to be all satisfying. That He is enough, even in the middle of suffering.

God reminded ME of that tonight. May He remind you as well.