A Simple Guide to Fabricating Joy When Life Stinks

Don’t. Just don’t.

Don’t fabricate joy.

It’s absolutely okay for life to stink.

There’s joy in the House of the Lord; there’s joy in the House of the Lord today

And we won’t be quiet; we shout out Your praise

There’s joy in the House of the Lord; our God is surely in this Place

And we won’t be quiet; we shout out Your praise

House of the Lord, by Phil Wickham

I like my worship songs like I like my books: Old, tested, penned by someone long-gone, carrying memories of the last time I sang (read) it and God spoke to my heart. But when Mister Larry introduced this song to us in church several weeks ago, I took an immediate liking to it. It’s just what an opening song for a worship service ought to be:

• It invites us to leave the troubles of the world outside (because He alone is able to work them out);
• It invites us to enter into praise;
• It is musically engaging (I daresay, it makes you want dance – or clap your hands, at the least);
• It is focused on who God is and what His presence means in our lives; and
• It calls us to action and it prompts our response, both individually and corporately.

Yes – I love everything about this song.

In the several weeks that Mister Larry taught us this song, Husband and I were blessed to have one Sunday in which we were able to attend church and worship in-person. As we care for my mother in the late-stages of her earthly life, our single greatest struggle has been the inability to attend church each week. It has left us dry and weary, longing for the fellowship of corporate worship. But on one Sunday, as Mister Larry was teaching this song, we were blessed to worship in-person. I remember thinking as we sang how true the song was in that moment – for us, there was absolutely no greater joy than to be in the House of the Lord.

Caring for my mother – watching her slowly approach death – has been an ocean of sorrow for me. I know that our hope is for life – true life – everlasting. I know that mom is ready (maybe even eager) to go Home. I know that this is passing; that is eternal. I know that Jesus is waiting to receive her with open arms – how could I mourn this truth? And yet, this side of Heaven knows enormous sorrows. There’s no denying it. Scripture doesn’t deny it. I read once that something like three-quarters of the Psalms contain an element of lament, either in structure or content. There’s simply no way to hide from sorrow: It is part of our human experience here on Earth. It is part of our fallen condition.

The Psalms also teach us to worship, though – and I’ve been contemplating of late this idea that when we choose to worship, we experience joy. Worship doesn’t deny the sorrow or the pain; worship declares who God is, exalting Him and exulting in Him, despite our present circumstance.

And that hit me very profoundly this weekend, as I sat in my living room with my husband, my toddler, and my mother, worshiping with our church via live-stream. In fact, it hit me so suddenly and so not intellectually, that the only thing I could do was accept it as the Spirit of God shouting to my soul.

It isn’t the building.

It was never the building.

When we sing that there’s joy in the house of the Lord, we are singing about a church gathering – but we sing of my home, also. Right in my living room – with the unvacuumed carpet, the dusty niknaks, the toddler-sized legos strewn about, the lab stretched out by our feet, my old and terminally out of tune piano, and the tangled mess of yarn that mom picks at each day – this is the house of the Lord, too. Our God is surely in this place, too. In this place, where my sorrows and struggles and sleepless nights and lost hours of work are drowning me; where everything in my world is back-burnered for this one mission of caring for my mother as she nears death; where I question, each day, what God is accomplishing in all of this – our God is surely in this place. In this place. In this house.

And then God’s Spirit doubled down on me with a reminder so clear that I had no response except to weep (You know the kind of weeping? Where you’re not sure where the tears even came from? They just suddenly pour out of you in something that somehow feels turbulent even though your spirit settles with undeniable peace?): Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? (I Cor. 6:19)

It is not the building.

It was never the building.

It is – has always been – us.

We are the temple of God’s Spirit.

We are the House of the Lord.

And no matter the circumstances of our lives, friends, when we enter into worship and declare the truth of who God is, He gives us His joy – for our sakes, for our families’ sakes, for the Body of Christ’s sake. It may not always look and feel the way our emotions tell us that joy should look and feel; but it’s the only way to know true joy, I think – to let it be God’s gift to us. And thank the Lord! – He never asks us to bring a fabricated faux-joy to worship; we bring what we have – our sorrows, our shame, our fears, our struggles, our questions, our sin, our anger – all of it – and He brings the joy in His time, in His way, into His Children – His House, because He is here.

Our God is surely in this place.

From the shores of Wicket Lake;