Between September of 2004 and August of 2005, my wife and I went through three miscarriages.
The last week of July, 2006, I was fired from my job.
On August 20th, 2006, my wife and I delivered our fourth pregnancy at twenty weeks, sweet Grace Shiloh, who was only with us for two hours.
In January of 2008, my wife checked into the hospital for observation during our fifth pregnancy, and spent the next nine weeks in a hospital bed with her feet higher than her head.
During those times, my heart and soul was kept from wandering into dangerous places by the guardrails of the Word of God. I am so thankful for the truth and clarity of Scripture.
And during those times, I was able to be honest with God through prayer, speaking to Him as I would to a father. I was not always polite, but I knew I could be honest. I am so thankful for the honesty and confession of prayer.
Yet, there is a part of us so often forgotten about—our emotions, our feelings.
No, we are not to be led by our feelings and emotions; but ignoring them, leaving them unaddressed, can allowed them to fester inside of us. They can act as a slow-spreading poison which infects our heart, mind, and soul.
Unless we unleash the power of worship.
Worship, specifically worship through music, is one of the most powerful tools throughout history to help our emotions align with God. As we open our mouths to sing, our mind engages the words, and our actions (lips moving, hands raising) engage the truth of God.
Then something, something we can’t always capture properly, something we can’t always understand, something happens to move us. To bring our hearts up to joy and praise. To weigh us down with the glory and presence of God. To move us past the places we’re stuck, to move us back to the places of truth and comfort.
Worship does this. Music does this.
So we must make music a part of our regular devotional time with God. It is not optional; it is not for certain personality types; it is for all who belong to Jesus to open up our mouths and declare!
We live in a world which feels increasingly unstable, uncertain, and confusing. We know truth, we speak with honesty to God, but we don’t always…feel…truth. This is why we need the power of music, the power of worship, to be unleashed in our lives on a regular basis.
Read always. Pray constantly. And sing; sing without ceasing so that the whole of your being will be aligned with God and worship Him in the good times, and the bad.
Ross and his wife Amy serve as Lead Pastor and Kid Nation Director at Southcoast Church in Miami, Florida. Ross and Amy met in college at Florida State University where Ross graduated with a degree in Music, which he is currently not using very much, much to his mom’s dismay. Amy graduated with a degree in International Affairs which is kind of a fancy way of saying, an interdisciplinary degree. They and their three boys live in Miami, Florida, USA.