Have you ever had a situation in your life where you felt like you were in a really dark place? I mean a place where you didn’t think you were going to see a way out. When I was pastoring at Berwick Church of God I worked part time at the Ohio Theatre on the maintenance crew. We cleaned the practice rooms, changed lights in the main auditorium and any other odd jobs around building. In the basement of the theatre there was this one room in the center of the building. It was the furnace room. You walked in through a sliding metal door into one room, down some stairs and into another big room where the main furnaces were kept. The joke that was played on the “New Guy” was to take him in there and run out, turn out the lights and shut and lock the door. The guys would then leave him there for a couple of hours. Of course most of the guys freaked out and would be very upset when this happened to them. Because the room was pitch black. You couldn’t see anything.
Well, this happened to me. The thing was though, and my brother told the other guys this, I just sat down and waited in the dark. It didn’t bother me at all. Actually, I was about to lay down and take a nap. My feeling was that if they wanted to lock me in there, I’ll let them go and do all the work for the day. Needless to say I didn’t stay in the “dungeon” very long.
There’s a passage in the Old Testament that brings us to a dark place. It is actually a Messianic passage. It’s found in Psalm 22:1-5. I would like to share some thoughts about this passage as it concerns to praise and worship.
I believe that we need worship services where the Holy Spirit can come in. Not that are chaotic, but where the Holy Spirit can redirect our program without offending the board, worship leaders, or those in the congregation. When you worship from the innermost parts of your spirit you will find hidden rivers that have been locked up down deep in your spirit. Let me tell you, it will take you to another level in your life. There are too many Christians today who come to church to be entertained. They watch the platform, they watch people worship, rather than have an intimate worship experience with Jesus themselves. They then walk away from the service with church dogma, religion, and creed, but no cross. But if you reach down into the depths of you being, down into the inner most regions of your life. You come to worship with your own unique expression of worship. refusing to be intimidated by how I worship God, which has nothing to do with how you worship God, God will do awesome things in your life. He will change your worship.
In this passage we see a glimpse of what happens to Christ on the cross. He cries out “My God.” The Psalmist talks about what he goes through day and night. Think about that, “night” those dark moments. Nighttime is the transitional moment. You see you cannot have a new day without a night in between. In order to go from one day into the next you have to have a night and there will be night experiences. These are times when you go from one situation in life to another, night experiences. When you go through change in your life, there will be those night experiences. When the church is going through times of change, there will be those night experiences. Those experiences that are tough. Those experiences that are different. Those experiences that you don’t understand. Those experiences that mean that you might have to sacrifice a little or a lot. However, in order to get to a new day, you have to go through the night. All of us will have to go through the night. All of us have or are having night time experiences. Night doesn’t show favoritism.
Here’s the great truth, night experiences become keen opportunities for new dimensions of praise. You see anybody can praise during the daytime. Anybody can praise in the light. What God is calling for is somebody to praise Him in the night of life. In the in between stages of life. We all know that life brings pain. Many of you know that I have recently been diagnosed with MS. If you know anything about this disease, there is no cure and if it progresses I could end up bedridden eventually. There are many different symptoms with the disease, and pain is one of them. There is physical pain, emotional pain, pain to my family, and I see pain in the church where I pastor as well. Life brings pain. However, what we have to do is maximize the moments between the pains. There are times when I’m not in pain. When life is good. When I’m feeling good.
This is what I want to talk about in the next couple of blogs. How to maximize the moments and praise and worship the Lord during the night time. Night Praise, have you ever thought about it? I believe that we are in and headed for some night experiences as believers in our country and in our world in the very near future. We need to make sure that we are ready to be able to deal with those night time experiences. Will we be like Paul and Silas and praise God at the midnight hour, or will we crumble under the pressure?
Until next time, love to all and keep praising the Lord in all that you do.
Pastor Rob
