After having another couple of rough days, I woke up this morning with Psalm 34:1 rolling around in my mind and heart.

“I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

I’ve often read and thought of this verse, and it caused me to worship.
This morning, it caused a rebuke in my heart.

More specifically, the words “all” and “continually” triggered the rebuke.

If God had left those words out, I would have been able to read or think of that verse even this morning and say, “Yes, Lord. I will bless You at times. Your praise shall be in my mouth.”

But that’s not what it says.

“I will bless the Lord at all times:”

All times?
Even the times I don’t feel like it?
Even the times when my heart is broken?
Even the times when (*gasp*) I don’t agree with what He is doing?

If we’re truly honest with ourselves, we all come to points like this.
Of course, we don’t like to admit it.

We don’t want the people sitting on the other end of the pew from us on Sundays knowing that we don’t like what God has chosen to allow in our lives.
We aren’t exactly mad about it, but we definitely don’t like it, and don’t really feel like blessing Him at the moment.

Aren’t we just like children?
Not exactly throwing a temper tantrum, but definitely pouting.

If you’ve ever read this blog before, you know that my sweet husband and I desperately want children.
After five years of watching our friends and family and people we love and complete strangers have baby after baby after baby… Well, it’s hard.

It’s hard to reconcile all the conflicting emotions in my mind and heart.
It’s hard to smile when I want to cry.
It’s hard to be happy when I feel like I’m surrounded by a dark cloud.

Some days, it’s hard to trust God when I really don’t like what He’s doing.

Those days when I feel like I’ve already learned whatever lesson He’s teaching me through this and I want it to be over already.
Those days when I go back and forth from begging God to let us have children to begging Him to just take the desire away if He won’t let us have them.
Those days when the tears don’t even help; they just seem to burn scars in my heart.

Those are the kind of days I’ve been having lately.
Should I bless The Lord even in these times?

Even as my flesh rebels against the very thought, my heart whispers “Yes.”

In the days when I don’t feel like blessing the Lord and praise is the last thing I feel like is in my mouth, those are the days when it’s most important.

See, I’ve discovered first hand that you can worship God with a broken heart.

Tears do not hinder worship.

I remember a quote I heard a preacher say once.
“Worship is the fragrance a rose emits when it’s crushed.”

When you absolutely don’t feel like it and you worship God anyway, it’s healing for your soul.
When you refuse to let your feelings and emotions get in the way of blessing the Lord who bought you and loves you and cares for you and really is doing what is best for you, that sweet Balm of Gilead washes over your heart and soothes your soul.

When you’re hurting and desperately needing some relief, get past the hurt and worship Him for who He is.
Remember He endured more hurt and pain than we could ever imagine.
Not only physical pain, but emotional as well.
The fellowship He enjoyed with His Father was severed so that He could endure all the wrath and judgment of the holy, righteous God to pay the penalty of our sin.
He went through that so that we could belong to Him…and He could comfort us and ease our pain.

If He’s allowing this trouble and pain in your life, rest assured there’s a good reason.
He’s going to get glory from your situation, whatever it may be, just like He will from my situation.
Otherwise, things would be different.

One day, you will come out the other side and see that trusting Jesus when you didn’t understand and blessing Him when you didn’t feel like it was the best thing you could have done.

We may regret a lot of things in this life, but we’ll never regret time spent worshipping The Lord….especially when we don’t feel like it.

“I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”