I would like you to join me in a conversation with a skeptic. Perhaps The Skeptic’s questions are yours too. If so, I have a proposal for both of you—and for myself.
One word describes how life comes at me some days. It feels relentless.
The phone rings, bringing another crisis. The news pulses with uncertainty: war, the cost of living, political vitriol, and one more reason to be afraid. Life can feel like the title of a U2 song: we are “stuck in a moment we can’t get out of’—or perhaps simply ‘Numb.’” It may not be that life is wildly out of control, frantic, or unstable. It may just be a day, a week, or a season when life feels like too much.
This morning I talked with a mother of five at her workplace. She had opened the store at 5:00 a.m. I asked whether she had to move stealthily through the house to get out the door without waking everyone. She smiled without words, offering only a nod that said, “You understand.” I grew up in a household of five children too, so I understood something of that early-morning routine. She knows what it is to have life begin making demands before dawn.
Now you will see why my proposal may sound counterintuitive. In such times, I say with Psalm 33, “Sing joyfully to the Lord.”1
The Skeptic: Did I read that correctly?
When life feels out of control, you suggest that we sing to the Lord? How do I do that when I am overwhelmed? Why would I sing when it is hard simply to breathe? Where would I find the strength to sing joyfully?
Sometimes We Sing Our Way Toward Joy
Try this: do not wait for joy before you sing. Sometimes we sing our way toward joy. Let worship center you. That is one of the gracious things worship can do.
Worship restores perspective. It places this urgent moment inside the larger story of God.
Worship restores focus. It turns our attention toward the One who is larger than our fear and more enduring than whatever is making demands of us today.
Worship restores memory. Scripture reminds us what God has done for God’s people, including us, and who God has promised to be.
Worship is also a form of resistance. In the song “Yes I Will,” one phrase returns like a steady heartbeat: “I choose to praise, to glorify.” Worship, like prayer, is a choice. It resists the tyranny of whatever is loudest, darkest, or most pressing around us. The loudest thing in your life does not deserve to be the lord of your life.
So, sing joyfully to the Lord.
The Skeptic: But isn’t worship a way of looking away from trouble? Don’t we turn from our actual circumstances toward some ethereal spiritual reality?
No. Worship does not deny trouble; it refuses to give trouble the final word. Worship is not escape from reality. It is a refusal to let chaos name reality for us. It teaches us where to look when the storm is raging, the way forward is obstructed, and the path is not clear.
Psalm 33 is not naive about the world. Before it ends, it has named the plans of nations, the strength of armies, the false promise of warhorses, famine, and death (vv. 10, 16-19). Its call to joy does not arise from easy circumstances. It arises from the character of God within dangerous circumstances. We do not sing because everything is settled. We sing because God is not unseated.
So I dare to say: in such moments, declare aloud with the community who God is. Verse 5 says, “The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.” The Hebrew word is hesed, God’s loyal, enduring love. Life may feel relentless, but grace is relentless too. Hesed is God’s holy relentlessness: it was there before this moment, it is here now, and it will be here tomorrow.
And worship becomes our tutor:
Sometimes the prayers carry us.
Sometimes the music carries us.
Sometimes hearing Scripture read carries us.
Sometimes the pastor’s message carries us.
Sometimes it is a handshake, a hug, or a smile that carries us.
Worship is not ultimately dependent on your feelings but on your convictions. What do you believe? Is the “today” of your life all there is? Do your present circumstances define you, determine your happiness, or place a ceiling over your joy? Listen again to the psalmist: “Sing joyfully to the Lord.”
The Skeptic: What gives the psalmist the right to say that? What is joyful praise grounded in?
A Foundation Sturdy Enough for an Unsettled Life
The psalm itself answers. The invitation to praise in verses 1-3 is followed by reasons in verses 4-19, and then by the community’s response in verses 20-22. The movement matters. Praise is not pulled out of thin air; it is grounded in who God is and what God does.
- God’s word is right and true, and God’s work is faithful (v. 4).
- God loves righteousness and justice, and the earth is full of God’s steadfast love (v. 5).
- By God’s word the heavens were made; God spoke, and creation came to be (vv. 6–9).
- The plans of nations do not endure, but the purposes of God stand through every generation (vv. 10–12).
- Kings, armies, and warhorses cannot finally save (vv. 16–17).
- The eye of the Lord (God’s attention and focus) rests on those who fear God (live in awe and reverence) and hope in God’s steadfast love, even amid famine and death (vv. 18–19).
Then the grammar changes. The psalm moves into the first-person plural: “We wait,” “our help,” “our hearts,” “we trust,” and “we hope” (vv. 20–22). This is not the private heroism of one emotionally resilient believer. It is the shared confession of a worshiping people. The community says together what one exhausted person may not yet be able to say alone.
The psalmist does not praise an impersonal idea of God. The song names God’s character, remembers God’s acts, looks honestly at the world’s unreliable powers, and then entrusts the community to God’s hesed. Scripture gives praise a foundation sturdy enough to bear the weight of an unsettled life.
Tim Keller, in his book Prayer, points out something we often miss. When Paul records prayers for his friends, he does not ask first for their circumstances to change. He prays that they will know God more deeply.2
Wait. Did Keller get that right?
Consider the world Paul’s churches inhabited: danger, hardship, persecution, disease, oppression, and separation from loved ones. Their lives were painfully insecure. Yet Keller observes, “In these prayers you see not one petition for a better emperor, for protection from marauding armies, or even for bread.” Paul’s great request is that they know God better. He is not indifferent to suffering; he is seeking the gift that can sustain a person within suffering.
What if we often get the order backward? We assume that our inner life can become steady only after our outer circumstances become manageable. The biblical prayers begin elsewhere: with a God whose character is already steady. They do not make circumstances unreal. They refuse to make circumstances ultimate.3
In worship, as in prayer, the Word and the words of God address our minds and hearts. Think of worship as a conversation in which God is given the first word. We hear Scripture, and then we answer. We need not let an elevated or depressed mood lead the conversation. We can allow our emotions time to catch up without asking them to take charge.
Say yes. Let God’s words reach your ears, mind, and heart. Listen first. Say yes first. Then answer: “I will sing joyfully to the Lord.” Faith does not tell the heart to be quiet; it teaches the heart where to listen.
That is the posture Psalm 33 gives to those who worship in season and out of season, when feelings are strong and when they are scarcely present:
- We fear God: we stand in reverent awe before God’s character (v. 18).
- We hope in God’s steadfast love (v. 18).
- We wait—not our greatest strength in Western culture (v. 20).
- Our hearts find gladness in God (v. 21).
- We trust, not in the verdict of the moment, but in God’s holy name (v. 21).
Your moods are no more fixed than the breeze. They arrive, change direction, and pass. Feelings matter; they tell the truth about something happening within us. But they do not tell the whole truth about the love others have for us, nor do they reliably reflect God’s hesed. Your feelings today may not be your feelings tomorrow, next week, or next month.
Israel did not sing only in gladness and delight. Israel also sang from anger, fear, grief, bewilderment, and even rage. The Psalter makes ample room for lament; laments form its largest single family of songs. God’s people are never asked to pretend that the universe is as it should be or that God always feels near. They are invited to bring the whole truth into worship.
Doesn’t this still amount to “fake it and pretend”?
Not at all. It means: live what you believe while telling God the truth about what you feel. Say yes to God. Say what you know. Let the joy of others carry your feelings when your own strength is thin. Let the truth you sing reach the neglected corners of a discouraged heart.
Discernment matters. There are seasons when lament is the faithful song, when the honest music is in a minor key. And there are seasons when we must rise above the message our mood is sending and say yes to a deeper truth: “Sing joyfully to the Lord.” Both lament and praise turn toward God. Neither gives despair permission to become our god.
But what if I cannot feel any joy at all?
Then do not manufacture it. Borrow the songs of the community. Let their faith keep a small corner of joy alive for you until you can sing again. Joy is sometimes less a feeling we possess than a song we borrow. Simply put: show up to God.
Practice: Let the words of worship carry you. Lift your voice; in time, your heart may follow. You do not always want to go to the gym, but you discipline your will to go anyway—some of the time. You do not always arrive at the dinner table cheerful, yet the laughter and warmth of a shared meal can encourage you. So, in worship, show up. Listen. Lift your voice. Tell the truth. Say yes. Let the joy of the community carry you forward.
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Keith Anderson, D.Min., is a Faculty Associate for Spirituality and Vocation at VantagePoint3 and President Emeritus of Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. He is the author of several books, including his most recent: On Holy Ground: Your Story of Identity, Belonging and Sacred Purpose (Wipf & Stock, 2024). His other works include Reading Your Life’s Story (IVP, 2016), A Spirituality of Listening (IVP, 2016), and Spiritual Mentoring (IVP, 1999). In his writing, teaching, and mentoring, Keith seeks to set a table for people looking to enter the “amazing inner sanctuary of the soul” in the most ordinary and extraordinary moments of life.
1 Psalm 33:1, NIV
2 Tim Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, p. 20.
3 Keller, p. 21.