If you worship with us at Radiant Church a few times you’ll probably hear me call the congregation back to some words they’ve sung together during the service and urge them to ponder. When we sing together in worship we’re either singing words addressed to God or to one another. In either case, we really should mean what we sing, shouldn’t we? And some of the things we sing are—well, difficult to mean. One that gets me almost every time is in the chorus of Phil Wickham's song, “Battle Belongs”:

Every fear I lay at your feet
I’ll sing through the night
O God, the battle belongs to you

Or how about this one from Cody Carnes:

‍I won’t bow to idols
I’ll stand strong and worship you
And if it puts me in the fire
I’ll rejoice ‘cause you’re there too

Sing through the dark night of pain? Rejoice in the fire of trial? Do we realize what we’re singing?

Some dark nights

I’ve asked this question many times over many years, but lately it’s become very personal for me. In the last year I’ve been battling a rather stubborn case of rheumatoid arthritis. It was a losing battle for months. Not only did initial attempts at treatment not work, they hurt my liver. I had to see a liver specialist who cheerfully told me there was a good chance my liver would heal, but I had to go on a “plant-based, gluten-free, dairy-free” diet to help both my weakened liver and inflammation from RA. And that’s no joke, y’all: since I tend to eat for comfort, she literally took away an important (fleshly) source of comfort. What’s more, she banned all ibuprofen-type pain relievers to protect my ailing liver, so I was in pain and couldn’t take anything for it. I had chronic fatigue that was burying me—for a month or so, I had to sleep for an hour or two nearly every afternoon just to keep functioning. I felt like I had the flu much of the time. There were some dark nights.

I’m doing a lot better today. We still have a ways to go, but my energy has mostly returned, my joints hurt a bit less, and I don’t feel like I have the flu. I’m so, so thankful. And we were thrilled to see this improvement before going on sabbatical for the summer.

But wait, there’s more! As the centerpiece of my 3-month sabbatical Pam and I are spending 7 weeks in the mountains—our happy place. Last week, a mere 5 days into our stay, I suddenly began to have spells of vertigo. Not a little dizziness, but the room-spinning, can’t-find-the-floor-until-you-fall-on-it kind. I’ll not go into boring details, but it seems to be a recurrence of a problem I had 15–yes fifteen—years ago. We found an urgent care just to be sure it wasn’t an infection or altitude sickness, and sure enough, it’s likely just a recurrence of Benign Positional Paroxysmal Vertigo. (And let me tell you, if I ever find the guy who decided to call this thing “Benign,” I’m going to have some hurtful words for him.) It comes and goes, and the exercises are already helping it calm down and hopefully go away again. I’m ok, but it can be discouraging and desperately uncomfortable.

Back to the worship lyrics. The point is this: I’ve experienced nights that frankly I don’t want to sing through, and I’ve been in fires where rejoicing is far from my heart. To be honest, my heart quails a little when these words appear on the screen Sunday morning.

Strength for what?

Unsurprisingly, the Lord is teaching me something. I’m meditating in Colossians these days, and Paul’s prayer in chapter 1 is that his readers will live life in a way that pleases God and reflects his goodness:

“So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; ¹¹being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.” Colossians 1:10–11 (ESV)

Look at verse 11: the worthy walk (following Jesus faithfully as a way of life) is a place of increasing strength! That sounds great, doesn’t it? I want to be strengthened with the glorious power of God, don’t you? And did you notice why he gives that strength? To create great endurance and patience that is polished with joy. That sounds good, too!

But the Christian life isn’t like my grandson’s video game, where all you have to do to “power up” is run over the sparkly gold coins. You don’t just say, “Lord gimme the power,” and suddenly you’re a paragon of joyful patience while you’re in all kinds of pain. No, he ministers his strength into your weakness, as trials make you feel your weakness, when you depend on him. Hey, that’s a three-point sermon:

• He ministers his strength to our weakness — his infinite store of grace, released to us on account of Christ, is always just what we need at that moment (Hebrews 4:16)
• As trials make us feel our weakness — his power is played out in the theater of our weakness. My need, my inability, my inadequacy is precisely the place where the power of Christ is intended to shine (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
• When we depend on him — in order for this to work, I must submit to it. If I clench my fists and slam my heart’s door closed against God’s good intentions for this trial, then I won’t be strengthened for joyful endurance. I’ll just be sad or frustrated or bitter. No progress. No growth.

Being strengthened with the power of God happens over time as we experience our weakness and lean on his strength. We learn to endure by enduring.

The night is dark, but God

I know that God has allowed me to experience chronic illness. Whatever it brings in the future, God’s power will strengthen me in order to joyfully press through it. Sometimes it still seems so surreal—how can anyone be joyful when they feel so wretched? But it’s possible—not because I’m strong but because he is strong for me, in me, at the exact point of my weakness.

And I don’t have to know the reasons why any particular thing happens to me. Just in the last week I’ve been tempted: “Vertigo, God? Really? Right now, after 15 years? Why? Why NOW?” But he also led me to Colossians, where I would be reminded of his glorious might for my joyful endurance—just as the weakness returned. To teach me that we learn to endure by enduring. So I guess that’s the reason, or one of them. OK, God, do your thing. What you have for me is better than what I’d planned for myself. I just need you to do it. You know better than I do that I can’t.

In case you’re wondering, I love those songs. I haven’t often sung through the dark night of weakness or rejoiced in the fire of trial. But songs like this help me aspire to live out gospel truth. I want to sing through the dark nights that are yet to come. I want to rejoice even when faithfulness lands me in the fire. I want his glorious might for my darkest night.

So I remember another song that we love to sing, this one by CityAlight:

The night is dark, but I am not forsaken
For by my side the Savior he will stay
I labor on in weakness and rejoicing
For in my need his power is displayed.