Praise in the Storm

“Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful.”

Psalm 33:1 (NKJV)

Praise is easy when the answer has already arrived.

Anyone can worship on the day the results come back clear, the offer is accepted, the relationship is restored. That kind of praise is genuine and God receives it gladly. But there is a deeper kind, and it happens when the answer has not arrived, may not arrive, and you worship anyway because you know who God is.

The psalmist writes, “Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful.”

Notice where the rejoicing is directed. Not in the circumstances. Not in the outcome. In the LORD. The object of praise is God Himself, and that is precisely why praise can survive a season when nothing else is going well.

And read on in Psalm 33 to see what the psalmist praises Him for. “The word of the LORD is right, and all His work is done in truth” (verse 4). “He loves righteousness and justice” (verse 5). “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made” (verse 6). “The counsel of the LORD stands forever” (verse 11). Every reason given is about God’s character and God’s works, not about the psalmist’s week. That is the raw material of storm-praise.

Now let me guard something immediately, because this is where worship teaching can become cruel.

Praising God in pain does not mean pretending you are fine.

The Bible is remarkably honest. Roughly a third of the psalms are laments. There is a whole book called Lamentations. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” is a quotation from Psalm 22, and it was on the lips of Jesus at the cross. God has never asked His people to smile through suffering or to describe their agony as a blessing while it is happening.

So bring the honesty. Cry, question, pour out your heart. That is not a failure of worship; in Scripture it is frequently the beginning of it.

But do not stop there, because the psalmists do not. Watch the pattern. They speak the pain fully, and then, again and again, they turn. They remember His character. “But I have trusted in Your mercy” (Psalm 13:5). “Why are you cast down, O my soul? ... Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him” (Psalm 42:11).

That is what praise does. It does not make the problem imaginary. It puts the problem back into proportion.

Because trouble distorts scale. When you are inside it, the difficulty fills the entire windscreen and God is somewhere in the mirror. Praise reverses that. It does not shrink the storm; it enlarges your view of the One who is with you in it until the storm finds its actual size.

Now, how do you actually praise when you do not feel like it?

Start with remembrance. This is the most practical thing in today’s reading. Take a few minutes and deliberately recall what God has already brought you through. The provision that came from a direction you did not expect. The door that opened. The mercy shown to you when you deserved something else. The season you were certain you would not survive, and here you are.

Remembering is a discipline because forgetting is the default. Israel’s repeated failure in the wilderness was not unbelief in the abstract; it was amnesia. They had watched a sea part and were complaining within weeks.

Then praise from that place of remembrance. Speak it aloud if you can. Sing on the way to work. Put a psalm on and let it carry you when your own words will not come.

Let me add one guard. Praise is not a lever. Some teaching turns worship into a technique for changing outcomes: praise hard enough and God will be obliged to act. That is not worship, it is transaction, and it makes God a mechanism. Paul and Silas sang in prison and an earthquake came. Stephen was worshipping while he was stoned to death and no earthquake came. Both were right. We praise because He is worthy, not because it produces results.

And notice something in the verse: praise from the upright is beautiful. God finds it beautiful. Your unsteady, tearful, hard-won worship in the middle of a difficult September is not tolerated by Him. It is beautiful to Him.

So do not wait for the storm to finish before you worship.

One more encouragement before you go into the day.

Notice that Psalm 33 begins with a command in the plural: “Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous.” Praise in Scripture is very often a corporate activity. That matters practically, because there are seasons when you genuinely cannot get there on your own.

On those Sundays when you sit in a service with nothing in you, and other people around you are singing, they are carrying you. That is not failure on your part; it is the body of Christ working exactly as designed. And one day you will be the one still standing when someone beside you cannot.

So when praise is hardest, do not withdraw from the gathering. Go, and let others carry the tune for a while.

Praise God in it, and let His faithfulness become louder than your fear.

Prayer

Father, I will not pretend I am fine, because You have never asked me to. You know exactly how this feels. But I will not stop at the pain either. I remember today what You have already done: Your provision, Your mercy, the doors You opened, the seasons You carried me through when I was sure I would not make it. You are faithful, holy, powerful and good, and none of that depends on my circumstances changing. Receive my praise in the middle of this, and let Your faithfulness become louder than my fear. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Declaration

I will not wait for the storm to pass before I worship. Praise does not shrink my problem; it restores the size of my God.

Pastor Ras

All Nations Community Church

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