Because sometimes worship and wailing sound the same but I learned they come from two different places. One from what God has already done and the other from a deep hope of what we long for Him to do.

Joyful music is wonderful but true Godly sorrow is transformational. And we need both in the House of God.

Not long ago, our precious Border Collie, Bear, was hit by a truck in our cul-de-sac and his leg was so badly damaged we were forced to amputate. It was only the second week at a brand-new school for my then eleven-year-old, and I knew it would be better for Selah to be in school while we had Bear at the vet hospital. That morning, rather than having her take the bus, we drove the backroads of Kentucky together in silence, her sitting in the front seat. Her little hands were perfectly clasped in her lap as she gazed out the window, her eyes full of tears threatening to fall at any moment.

I grabbed her hand and started thanking God for the gift that Bear was to our family and how God used him to bring us joy and protection and laughter. Right there in our little Toyota SUV, God met my daughter and me in a time of thanksgiving and lament, because God meets us in both expressions of worship. We don’t have to gaslight ourselves into believing everything is always good all the time. Our children need to see us wrestling with God in situations that feel unfair and unkind. They need to hear us praying, weeping, rejoicing, and worshiping in freedom, not fearing what people will think.

In Acts 16:25 we see Paul and Silas sitting in their prison cell and we’re told, “Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening.” 

I don’t know about you, but I struggle with nighttime. During the day I am busy and my thoughts are on the many tasks in front of me, but as soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m a prisoner to regret, fear, and insecurity. As someone who has struggled with anxiety, the midnight hour can be filled with Googling mysterious symptoms ailing my body, rethinking old conversations and scenarios, and waking up to every creak in the house as I beg sleep to find me.

Paul and Silas were in their own literal midnight hour, but rather than worry and focus on their circumstances, they began to pray and worship, and it says in the scriptures that the “other prisoners were listening.” (v25)

What should we take away from this?

Those in bondage to this world are watching us as Christ followers to see how we will respond to the midnight hour.

The cancer diagnosis.

The divorce.

Our prodigal.

The loss of a child.

A season of unemployment.

Financial struggles.

Will we worry or will we worship?

There are sounds we can’t un-hear. For me as a church kid, it was the wailing of saints in the pews begging God to bring home their prodigal. It was praying in living rooms for God to restore a marriage. It was the silent sobs of a mother in her birthing room asking for a miracle. It’s a groan like no other. It’s animalistic, primal, raw, a sound I could identify without looking up.

Because sometimes worship and wailing sound the same but I learned they come from two different places. One from what God has already done and the other from a deep hope of what we long for Him to do.

I remember the first time I distinguished the difference between someone worshiping from a place of gratitude and worshiping from a place of deep sorrow because it woke me up. Yes, joyful music is wonderful but true Godly sorrow is transformational. And we need both in the House of God. Both have changed me.

From far away one might not be able to tell the worship from the wailing, but it reaches the throne of Heaven equally. It’s a sound I’ll never forget. It’s a sound that kept drawing me back into the House of God and into the homes of the saints and it’s possible this sound led me into an early ministry of worship leadership. I got to be part of both the celebration and the transformation, in the lives of the congregation as well as my own.

Holy lament is a song few want to sing, but it’s our worship penned in the dark night of the soul that writes a mournful melody in a minor key. We’re singing over those who have lost, wrestling with anger, contending for peace, waiting for answers, grieving, weeping, suffering.

When the Church worships, lives are changed. We don’t worship because we got the outcome we wanted, the test results we prayed for, or the miracle we felt we were promised, but because God promises that when we worship and pray, he will be among us. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom and unity.

May we be a people who worship and wail, shouting His salvation and mourning with sweet brokenness His amazing grace.

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Excerpted from The House That Jesus Built: Leading Our Churches Back to God’s Original Blueprint © 2024 Natalie Runion. Used by permission of David C Cook.  May not be further reproduced.  All rights reserved.