[Note: After today, The Up Devotional will go on pause for a week, returning on June 12, 2023.]

If you want to read something that tells you that everything is always wonderful and that life should be a non-stop parade of flowers and lollipops, don’t read the Bible.

The Bible is too honest for that. It gives you the ups but also the downs, the joys but also the sorrows, the bliss of heaven and the cross of pain. This is one of the reasons it continues to speak to us.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Psalm 88. N.T. Wright calls it the “darkest poem” in the book.* Why, then, is it included? Why not leave it out?

Because that wouldn’t be honest.

In verses 3 and 4 Heman cries out: “I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like one without strength.”

Here’s something about Psalm 88 that we often miss. It was made for people to use in worship. Heman was a part of a family who had certain responsibilities for music and worship. Instead of keeping his painful thoughts to himself in a private diary, he wrote them down with a specific purpose: to be used by God’s people in worship.

It was as if he and his family knew that countless generations would go through similar hardships. So why not set these thoughts and feelings to music so that God’s people could continue to lay bare their hurting souls with other believers and to be mutually encouraged?

That’s the thing about worship. It helps and corrects our perspective, even when we’re down in the dumps. The music, the prayers, the teaching, and the inspired Word re-centres us on the God who saves when we’re not even sure which way is up.

When you’re slumping you need to lean on others. Worship enfolds you again in your Father’s strong arms.

During worship, it’s as if God looks you in the face and says, ‘I know you’re hurting; be honest with me, I can take it; sing praises; receive my promises; journey with my other children; be open to my Spirit; and be re-centred and uplifted through my powerful and unrelenting Word.’

Correct your perspective with consistent worship.

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Notes:

–*N.T. Wright, The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential (HarperOne, 2013), 72.

–Bible quotes are from the NIV.