Down Bad, but Up Right
Note: Click here to listen to the audio recording
~5 min read
Hi there. Welcome to Well Lit Soul. Where we seek God, face darkness, and shine brighter. This season of the blog is all about encouragement. So today’s blog is called: Down Bad, but Up Right.
In case you haven’t picked up on it, music was a critical component of making it through my storms. During all of those times when I couldn’t pray or didn’t want to open my bible, I relied heavily on hymns and gospel music to fill my heart and soothe my spirit. I often thought about Psalm 30, specifically verses 4-5 which say,
4 Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. 5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.
And I can’t tell you how many nights I spent weeping, wondering which morning would come with joy. I had ended another day feeling completely invisible to the people around me. Feeling forgotten by God. Having no idea what to do, how to pray, or who to turn to. I was down bad in every way, but knew I couldn’t quit on God. My faith was small but I knew the scriptures were right and I had to find a way to keep going.
So, almost every night for several years I listened to four songs. To quiet my mind and calm my heart. Even if I didn’t fully believe the words and the flame of my faith was barely an ember, I kept these songs on repeat as a source of comfort and to encourage myself to stay with God. They were:
His Eye is on the Sparrow from Sister Act 2
Keep Me by Patrick Dopson
My Worship (Remix) by John P. Kee
No Weapon by Fred Hammond
When you have a moment, give these songs a listen, but I’ll tell you why I kept them on a loop. They have a slow tempo and a blend of rich and warm voices with a calming melody that offer a soothing comfort. But they also have lyrics that cry out to God in time of doubt and darkness. For example, “Why should I feel discouraged, Why should the shadows come, Why should my heart be lonely, And long for heaven and home.” You can see how they spoke directly to the pain I was experiencing.
But more importantly than that, they also all described the ways God will carry them through the storms. For example, “You are Jesus, My strength this hour- Jesus, My hope and my future Jesus, Source and my shelter- Jesus” and “No weapon formed against me shall prosper, It won't work, God will do what He said He will do, He will stand by His word and He will come through”.
Looking back on this time, I realized this season was changing me. Testing me and pushing me to become who God intended for me to be. Putting pressure on my faith to see if I would really trust God with my life. To see if I could suffer long and endure the pain like so many in scripture did. We often focus on the riches and blessings that the bible talks about, but we can gloss over the trials because they’re not pretty. But the thing about this is, blessings and trials are the flip side of the same coin. You don’t get one without the other. And I think we do Christianity and God a disservice by only glorifying the blessings, because we won’t really know who God is and how to praise Him if we only acknowledge Him when things are going well. Which ultimately means we won’t learn to fully trust Him and give control over to Him if we don’t go and grow through the storm.
So my prayer for anyone who is down bad in their walk with God is to become up right in spirit. I pray that you can be reminded of His faithfulness and hopeful in God’s promises and always know that He has not forgotten you, Isaiah 49:14-15. That you can be focused on God and not the calamities around you. To always remember that darkness and death is not the end of the story, Acts 2:22-24. But darkness does have a purpose and it can be used to shape you into who God wants you to be so He can use you for His good. Which is far greater than any good we can imagine.
Connection Question: What do you to stay up right when things are down? How do you stay encouraged to keep going with God?
Let me know in the comments, I’d love to connect with you about it.
