Truth beats Self-Pity

I have a tendency toward self-pity; I don't know if you've noticed that. I really seemed to notice it tonight, when I was sitting in the auditorium that is my new church, waiting for the service to start, when the lights go down and no one passing by will notice that I've come to church alone. So God opened my eyes to this self-pity and I prayed that He would move my mind away from that, away from myself and move it to the bigness of Him, of His love, of His purpose. And then we started singing. And we sang songs about the wonder of God, about the sovereignty of God, about His strength and His presence as our fortress, our refuge. And the worship was uplifting, even if I was standing by myself singing, I wasn't singing alone (although that didn't occur to me until right now) ... the point was, I was singing. And what it was that I was singing was True. When the singing ended and the lights came up, we greeted those around us, and two of the four people I know at the church now (two of the four people I met at women's group on Thursday) were standing within greeting distance from me. And I was comforted. And the sermon was good, there were things in it for me to chew on ... like "God is more present in the goodbyes than the hellos" speaking of Joseph in the Old Testament ... And then we sang again, more Truth.

Rob Bell at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has given a couple of sermons about why we sing, and he always makes the point that sometimes we sing not because we feel like it, but because we want to feel like it; and sometimes we sing because we just need to have Truth come across our lips. And sometimes that's just enough, because that's where we are. And that's a little bit where I was tonight. And I can say now, from experience, that having Truth on your lips, really does make a difference in the things that are on your mind. I don't know which comes first, but I do know that they're related.