I appreciate the brief few years I sang in praise bands. I praise the situation and the unbelievability of it too as a non-trained singer, but mostly I praise the Holy Spirit for putting me where I needed and need to be. The songs were new to me, my praise was given an outlet, and it still is in recordings of those and other songs. Good thing because what was memorized before fades away…

Singing is soothing. My praise pours out loudly splashingly or it sips on His soothing of pain like sipping a cup of tea… in other words the Praise songs as well as life tears include BOTH praise and pain… isn’t that true… True. Pain and praise intertwine.

“There MAY BE pain in the night, but JOY comes in the morning.” That’s a lyric from a modern praise song which comes from old truth in Psalm 30 of David.

And Psalm 19:1-4 is speaking praise without speaking: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

My bandmate friend from many years ago wrote a new song, based on that scripture and others. It’s complex and yet so are we and so are our lives, there’s a mixture of pain and pondering and pure happiness. Joy can be in all, and one’s JOY in the Lord can be deliverance or diversion from pain. In other words when we look big picture, God view, the problems fade away.

How could we not feel pain alongside our praise. Sometimes we fall silent in pondering. Revelation 8 states that heaven goes silent for half an hour between revelations of the seals. Even in heaven there is pondering…

Sometimes we don’t hear the song or it doesn’t lift from the page until notes are added which can be understood musically. We don’t know the tune of these psalms. But our life experiences can make them our own. We travel our own tune.

In other words, music lyrics and song are meant to be together. Life Praise and pain are the same way on earth, intertwined they give completeness to our comprehension. How more intense our praise when pain is stopped. 

Remember The Word IS Jesus, Jesus understands the pain and the prayers and the praise. Jesus IS the truth, the Way and the Life… He knows it all… And with Jesus comes forgiveness If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. (Psalm 130:3-4)

Since we are not there yet, we humanly feel that pain still real and raw. Our relief – and our eternal relief – we are still taking hold of. It is a new mix for us remedying pain, pondering, and praise. Let us wait on the Lord – My soul waits on the Lord – He can be the mixing table for our new songs.

Amen and keep singing…

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I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spared me from going down to the pit. Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. Psalm 30:1-5

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My Soul Waits for the Lord from Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.