Worship in Suffering

Pastor Daniel Goulding · Oct 16, 2023

In Acts 16, the apostle Paul experiences repeated seasons of divine redirection — blocked from Asia, rerouted to Europe, and ultimately imprisoned — yet God uses every confusing turn to bring salvation to a wealthy merchant, a slave girl, a jailer, and an entire prison. Pastor Daniel draws on this passage to argue that God's people are not called to understand every step of His plan, but to trust Him through the confusion, remain present in their pain, and keep declaring His goodness — because it is often in our most disorienting seasons that God is doing His most fruitful work.

Pastor Bill Bush · May 23, 2021

Rather than treating sadness as an enemy to avoid or a wave to fight head-on, Pastor Bill draws from Psalm 13 to show that sadness is a feeling to be surfed wisely. Like David crying out honestly to God from years of wilderness wandering, we are invited to do three things: clarify what is truly underneath our sadness, cry out to God with raw honesty about it, and cling — as an act of will, not just feeling — to God's never-ending, unfailing love, choosing worship even before the wave of relief arrives.

Pastor Bill Bush · Sep 27, 2020

Drawing from Psalm 23:3 and the story of King David in 2 Samuel 12, Pastor Bill argues that true emotional healing is not simply the absence of bad feelings. God restores our souls by leading us along a well-worn path — one that requires us to accept what cannot be changed (surrendering guilt and grudges to God), to worship Him even when life delivers a painful 'no,' and to fix our eyes forward rather than backward. These steps are counterintuitive, but they are the path to genuine, lasting restoration.

Pastor Bill Bush · Jul 27, 2020

In Acts 16, Paul and Silas—beaten, chained, and thrown into the deepest part of a Roman dungeon for doing the right thing—model three Spirit-empowered responses that allow God to transform any breakdown into a breakthrough: they prayed instead of panicking, praised instead of prattling in self-pity, and pointed others to Jesus instead of pinning blame or simply trying to escape. Their midnight worship not only freed them spiritually but led to the salvation of an entire household, showing that God can use our worst moments as someone else's best day.