When do we worship God? When life is easy, when you're on top of the world? In normal times, when everything is going okay? Or in hard times, when your life is falling apart? When cancer takes away your health, when your parents die, when you lose everything you value?

In the Bible, a man named Job in one day lost all his possessions, his employees were all murdered and his sons and daughters died in a sudden accident. The first thing he did is something we find very natural in painful times. He grieved for what he had lost. But the second action he took is so different from how we respond to loss in our own lives. Even while grieving, he fell on his face and worshiped God. We get angry with God, we accuse Him of not loving or caring for us. We fear that God has turned His back on us, and so we turn away from Him. Or we beg Him and swear that we'll praise Him after He heals and restores us. We tell Him that if He really loves us, to prove it and then we'll finally stop sinning, start witnessing, etc.

Several times in the Bible, Jesus tells someone "your faith has healed you". When we are experiencing pain, it feels like God is being cruel to us us by demanding that we believe we have healing while we are still feeling the pain, or that He is asking us to praise Him while He seems so distant.

But the truth is actually the reverse. Faith comes from knowing deep down who God is, and when we know that in our hearts, we want to worship God who is our healer, He is the creator of all things, He does sustain and protect us, He does give us grace for today, hope for tomorrow, and assurance for eternity. When we truly know who He is, then we have to acknowledge Him in worship. Worshiping Him doesn't mean pretending that we aren't in pain.

We find healing when we worship in God's presence.

If you're hurting right now, if you feel alone and forsaken, put on some healing worship music, and start acknowledging God for who He is and what He's already done for you.