UNTIL. NOT WHEN.

(Post by: Madie Hobbs)

A couple weeks ago, my family and I got the opportunity to go to a concert for a band we all really enjoy, Rend Collective (More specific details to come in an upcoming podcast episode).

If I’m being honest, I fluctuated between eager expectation and reluctance. My anxiety was running a little high on the way over, and I would’ve been happy to stay at home. Little did I know, it proved to be just what I needed.

About halfway through the concert, which really just ended up being a night of true worship, the band played a song I hadn’t heard in a long time, and it turned out to be something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

Here are some of the lyrics:

When the enemy says I’m done I lift my praises

When my world comes crashing down I lift my praises high

‘Til the darkness turns to dawn I lift my praises

I choose to worship

I choose You now

(I Choose to Worship by Rend Collective)

The lyrics caught me a little off guard as I sang them. I didn’t expect to hear something that would remind me of all the ways my own world has come crashing down over the past few months. Repeatedly it seems. A little tear rose to my eye while I felt a deep and unutterable sadness for all the things I would never have again, and I found myself feeling as though I was lying to myself by singing these lyrics. Yet at that same time, I wanted so desperately to be able to sing them confidently, with my whole heart.

It has been hard to come up with any kind of praise. It’s been hard to focus on any kind of good. And something very specific struck me about one line in this song.

It says “‘Til darkness turns to dawn I lift my praises”.

For some reason, I would have rather it said, “When darkness turns to dawn”. Because that would change the meaning of it entirely. I would have an out to tell myself it’s okay if I don’t feel like praising now, because there will always be time to praise once whatever terrible thing is done. And that’s really all I would have to praise for anyway. For the cessation of the terrible. It would give me some vindication in wanting to sit in the dark, with my head down and my mouth closed, and allow the walls to come closing in.

I would be lying if I said I haven’t felt like doing that these past few months. I’ve been weary, frustrated, and jaded against others. But this song reminded me that while I am feeling very deep and raw emotions, it’s never alright to let darkness consume you. Even if you don’t know how long it will take until dawn does come.

As I am writing this, my mind has wandered to a scene in The Two Towers, the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I think back on three companions, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas as they run across a wilderness in search of two friends who have been taken captive. After many days of finding trail after trail to lead them to their enemy, they’ve never actually been able to catch up with them. They’re weary and frustrated when they stop one night to rest for a few hours. Legolas stays up to set watch, while Aragorn and Gimli try to sleep, which they never fully do.

They’re all lying awake, camping in a wilderness on an oppressively dark, still night and they are all thinking about the same thing. Their friends, taken captive by cruel enemies, and how the three of them are the only hope of rescue they have.

The scene is not wholly discouraging, however, and has been one I have thought of time and time again.

Tolkien describes it like this:

“The night grew ever colder. Aragorn and Gimli slept fitfully, and whenever they awoke they saw Legolas standing beside them, or walking to and fro, singing softly to himself in his own tongue, and as he sang the white stars opened in the hard black vault above. So the night passed.”

So the night passed. What a beautiful line! Especially when prefaced with the short description of the group’s surroundings. Cold, dark, hard, fitful. What they experienced certainly did not look like a recipe for song. Yet sing Legolas did, and that is what opened the hard black vault above them.

Tolkien goes on to say:

“Together they watched the dawn grow slowly in the sky, now bare and cloudless, until at last the sunrise came. It was pale and clear. The wind was in the East and all the mists had rolled away; wide lands lay bleak about them in the bitter light.”

The way he describes this is truly an example of what it often looks like when we go through hardship. Sometimes, the dawn comes, and the light is still bitter and the land still bleak. Sometimes wide lands we must traverse still lie before us, though our feet are aching and our eyes are heavy. Yet they chose to sing. To face the dawn together, though many trials still lay ahead. But so the night passed.

During a classical education conference I listened to a few weeks ago, a particular Psalm was being contemplated in every session. A few of the verses from the chapter seemed to take the words right out of my mouth as I thought of how difficult it is to praise during this period of my life.

“Relent, Lord! How long will it be?

Have compassion on your servants.

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,

That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many years as you have afflicted us,

For as many years as we have seen trouble.”

(Psalm 90:13-15 NIV)

To hear someone else cry out to Jesus in a way I have been for the past few months, begging Him to relent, to restore what has been lost, to make us glad for as long as we have seen trouble, changed my heart in a lot of ways. Through these verses, I felt the Holy Spirit reassuring me that it’s okay to cry out to the Lord in anguish sometimes. To ask Him for some kind of relief, some kind of cessation to what you have experienced. It may not always come right away, but it will come eventually, and we will sing for joy and be glad.

The Lord has continued to convict me using the song I heard and cried to at that concert. He continually reminds me that if I only praise once the trial has ended, the trial has been wasted. If I do not praise, I will never see the hard black vault open above my head and grace a few stars. I will never see a few holes in the oppressive container I seem to be trapped in.

I encourage you, dear reader, though I may not be entirely warranted to instruct you in something I continue to learn, praise until the darkness turns to dawn. Not when. Face the dawn with a song, however soft it may be, after however fitful a sleep you have had. No matter how oppressive the vault above you is, praise until it opens. You may have to camp out in a dark wilderness for a while. That’s okay. Pull out the guitar and sing around the campfire sometimes. Even if your song is no louder than a whisper.

When the enemy says you’re done, you lift your praises.

If only to kick him in the teeth. 

SO, WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE?

= What part of this post lifted your spirits as you read and contemplated it?

= What are you going to do differently?