A Reason to Sing – Fighting for Faith in the Midst of Doubt

“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?”

– Habakkuk 1:2

Sometimes I have doubts.  I don’t like to admit it, it’s scary to say out loud, but I do.  I feel so ungrateful to have these feelings, to question God, to wonder “why” in any situation.  I get scared and discouraged and can throw an obnoxious fit in my heart about what I want God to do for me, not understanding why He won’t.  But I can tell you that God can handle our doubts, and that He responds so lovingly and graciously when we feel that way.  The worst thing we can do is try to hide these feelings and pretend they don’t exist. 

A few weeks ago I was struggling so much with doubt.  I have been praying without answer for one situation in my life for months.  I am doing everything I know to do, I have prayed endlessly, I have had the pastors pray, I know God can heal this situation but He hasn’t yet.  I am weary.  I am worn.  My heart is heavy.  I am watching my child as she is broken and frustrated and I have been up late nights with her for months, trying to explain to her why she is continuing to be in pain.  I feel bitter, I feel helpless, and I feel hopeless.  All of these feelings came to a head one night as I was preparing for worship the next day, practicing the songs I was going to sing, and I felt empty.  I thought, “there is no way I can be on that stage and sing these songs because I will be a total fraud”.

Now worship is not just singing, so hear me in that whatever God has gifted you with that draws you closer to Him in your heart, any and every aspect of our life can be an act of worship (Romans 12:1).  For me in this moment, I got out my music books and I started singing to God.  And I started to sing the song “Reason to Sing” by All Sons and Daughters.  And as the words came out, “if this waiting lasts forever, I’m afraid I might let go”, I sang that to God, I sang it again and again because it was true.  In that moment, the cry of my heart was “God, don’t let me let go”.  I must have sang that song 100 times that Saturday night, and I meant it.  I meant every word.  I sang and I prayed and I begged God to give me a reason to sing on Sunday.  “Your peace is the melody, will you sing it over me now?”  And the Lord met me, He was with me and I could feel His presence and His love for me and I knew there was nothing I could do to ever separate me from Him, there was nothing I could say, nothing I could feel in my sinful heart that could make God love me less. 

God answered my prayer, He sang His peace over me, He filled my heart with gladness, and He made every song a song I wanted to sing to Him.  You see my sisters, we need to run to God with every doubt, every fear, and every shred of bitterness.  While I wish I never felt this way, it would be dishonest to deny that sometimes I do.  When my faith is waning in one area, I need to cling to God’s word and the things I know to be true.  I want to see God’s miraculous healing power.  I want to see it so badly.  I have prayed for many different situations over the years and God has chosen not to provide physical healing then, but I know that His ways are not my ways, and I know that He loves me and those I have prayed for.  So I can sing “My life is yours, my hope is in you only”, and I can mean it.  I can mean it because this situation in my life is temporary, but His love is eternal.  So after my minor temper tantrum with the Lord, He so gently and lovingly brings me back to the reality that He is everything, and He is the focus of my heart in all things.  The book of Habakkuk starts with his questioning of God, and it ends in a song of praise, because Habakkuk realizes it is not what the Lord does for us in this life that causes us to worship, it is the Lord Himself that we desire.  In Him only will we find peace and joy.

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places”.  (Habakkuk 3:17-19)

(You can listen to the song “Reason to Sing” here, https://youtu.be/UGhmvNGFENE)