Can Your Pain Become Praise?

Can you really praise God while you're hurting? Yes, and it may be one of the most important things you do in a hard season. Praise doesn't always change your circumstances first. It changes what happens inside you while you walk through them. It often brings you closer to God than you've felt in a long time.

What is the Valley of Baca?

The Valley of Baca is a dry place from Psalm 84 that came to stand for seasons of pain. Psalm 84 is a pilgrimage psalm, one of the songs worshipers sang on the road up to Jerusalem to worship God at the temple.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.

Psalm 84:5 to 7

Baca was likely a real place pilgrims had to pass through, named for a balsam tree that grows in hot, arid ground. Over time it also became a picture of pain. Your Baca is the hard place you've already been through, or the one you're in right now. It lies on the way to Zion, your refuge in the Lord.

Pastor Joel Schmidgall grew up at Calvary and is walking through a hard season with his own family. As a guest on Beyond Sunday, he put it honestly. Some people try to grit their teeth and get through Baca. Some never make it through. But God has something for you in Baca. He makes springs in the desert, and even in the driest season there can be refreshing for your soul.

Why does Scripture teach us to go through pain with a song?

Because the way you walk through pain matters to God. Host Pastor Sean Sloan noticed something easy to miss: this whole teaching on going through difficulty is a song.

The psalms are not all cheerful. Some are laments, full of grief. Some are cries for God to judge the wicked. Yet they keep coming back to praise. Israel was taught where to go and also how to go, and they went with praise on their lips.

That gives you permission to be honest. You don't have to pretend everything is fine. Praise is turning toward God in the middle of what's real and refusing to stop there.

Does your posture in worship make a difference?

It can. Pastor Joel described a counselor friend who ran experimental counseling sessions in different postures: sitting, kneeling, sitting on the floor. People opened up differently depending on how they were positioned.

He believes worship works in a similar way. As he put it on the episode: "Every time I hit my knees, humility hits my heart." When you lift your hands or kneel, something shifts inside you. In his current hard season, he said, praise has brought him into an intimacy with the Lord he hadn't felt in a while.

Your faith is not disembodied. God became flesh in Jesus, so you have a Savior who understands what it is to live in a human body.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin.

Hebrews 4:15

God is in your human experience with you, and He can carry you through it.

How can your spirit stay strong when your body is weak?

The Spirit of God can strengthen you from the inside out, even when everything outside is falling apart. You can let your circumstances shrink you on the inside, or you can let God renew you from within.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

2 Corinthians 4:16

Pastor Joel has been praying Luke 1:80 over people he loves. The verse says John the Baptist "grew and became strong in spirit." He calls it a 1:80 prayer: God, whatever direction their circumstances are going, give them strength of spirit.

He's seen that strength up close. A family member in the hospital for cancer surgery ended up ministering to one of his nurses. A brother facing a serious illness keeps talking about the peace and presence of God that sustains him. That kind of inner strength, he said, is a sign of spiritual maturity. People who are going through the hardest things often receive extra grace, and then become a strength to everyone around them.

What if God doesn't take the pain away?

Keep praying for a miracle, and know that God's presence holds you either way. Both men on the episode were clear that they're still believing for healing. Turning pain into praise is not always God changing the circumstance first. Many times He does, and He gets the glory. But even while you're still walking through it, there is refreshing in the middle.

Jesus made a promise that doesn't depend on the outcome.

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Matthew 28:20

There is no get-out-of-life-free card. Scripture is full of people who went through hard things, and God was with every one of them. He will be with you too.

Common questions

What is the Valley of Baca in Psalm 84?

It was probably a dry place pilgrims passed through on the way to Jerusalem, and it came to stand for seasons of pain. Psalm 84 says those whose strength is in God make it a place of springs as they go through it.

How can I praise God when I'm hurting?

Start honestly, as the psalms do, and keep coming back to praise. Many people find that worship, even through tears, and a change of posture like kneeling bring them closer to God than they have felt in a long time.

Does praising God mean pretending everything is fine?

No. The psalms include grief, lament, and cries for justice. Praise means turning toward God in the middle of what is real, not hiding it.

What if God doesn't heal?

Keep asking for a miracle, because God still heals. Jesus also promised to be with us to the very end of the age, so His presence and peace hold us whatever the outcome.

Read the blog postPassing Through the Valley of Baca: Finding God in Painful Seasons (Psalm 84)Every road to Zion ran through Baca, the valley of weeping. Psalm 84 shows how God's people passed through pain and left springs behind them.Read the post