The Choice is Yours

At the end of Joshua's life he asks the people of Israel to make an important choice.  He says choose this day whom you will serve - whether it is the true God, or some other god, but make a decision and then he adds - as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  That same choice is given to us every single day.  We get to choose who or what we are going to worship.  This is an especially important choice with everything going on around us right now.  It would be very easy right now to "worship" our fear, our uncertainty.  It is easy to get lost in all of that and miss out on worshiping the only one who truly deserves our worship, the only one who can truly tell us who we are.  I don't think it is any coincidence that in the midst of all this God brought these words to the group Rend Collective - this is from their new album that just came out last week - the song is called "I Choose to Worship"

I choose to worship, I choose to bow
Though there's pain in the offering, I lay it down
Here in the conflict, when doubt surrounds
Though my soul is unravelling, I choose You now

I will praise You through the fire
Through the storm and through the flood
There is nothing that could ever steal my song
In the valley, You are worthy
You are good when life is not
You will always and forever be my song

Those words about being in the conflict, about doubt surrounding us - that sometimes life is not good.  Those are ringing true for so many people today.  This is definitely a "valley" time in most of our lives.  And yet the truth that cries out from this song is that God is still worthy.  That He is still good even when life is not.  We can still choose to worship him - that's the beautiful choice that God has given us.  In some ways it is a lot harder to make that choice right now - there is so much to distract us from it, to draw our attention away.  But on the other hand it is so great to make that choice, to put our hope, our joy, our trust, our faith into the only sure thing we have in the midst of all this uncertainty. 

The bridge of the song says this:

When the enemy says I'm done, I lift my praises
When my world comes crashing down, I lift my praises high
Till the darkness turns to dawn, I lift my praises
I choose to worship, I choose You now

All around us the enemy is whispering to people that we are done.  Instead of listening to him, we can lift out praises and drown him out.

All around us the world seems to be crashing down - but we can still lift high the name of Jesus.

Yes, there is darkness all around us, but there will be a dawn.  It might take longer than we want, but it will come, and until it does we can continue to praise our great God.

The choice to worship isn't about ignoring the things happening around us.

The choice to worship is about choosing God in the face of those things.

It is seeing all of that and still believing in the goodness and greatness of our God.

You can check out Rend Collective performing this song here.

And if you're on Facebook they have been doing some videos called "Socially Distant Worship Club" that have been really awesome - check them out.

Love you guys - see you soon.