When our hearts feel dull or hurt and we don’t know where or how to start a song of praise, we have the psalmist’s words. Let his faith carry ours until we can jump into the chorus of praise alongside him.

We can sing of God’s salvation (v.2); His glory and His wondrous works (v.3); His greatness (v.4); His identity as creator (v.5); His splendor, majesty, strength, and beauty (v.6); His reign (v.10); and His righteous and faithful justice (v.13). Worshiping our mighty God helps to loosen fear’s grip; in worship we are reminded about who our God really is.

And as we read the psalms, we see the psalmists calling us not only to sing but to move out from individual praise into proclamation praise: “Declare his glory among the nations, his wondrous works among all peoples” (v.3), to “proclaim his salvation from day to day” (v.2).

Proclaiming His salvation could be telling someone of Jesus’s sacrifice for you and for them. It could also be telling them how the Lord is saving you today and forgiving your sins and redeeming you and making you more and more like Jesus. It could also be talking about His daily provisions and ways you see His goodness and mercy following you. In all of it, you are letting others in on the details of living this messy, beautiful life under the glorious truth that you are a child of God with the hope of heaven.

In our praising and proclaiming, we must never forget that we can only enter the Lord’s courts and come before Him with singing because of the precious blood of Jesus shed for us on the cross which we meditate on particularly in these days of Lent. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Lord graciously calls us His children and calls us into His courts, knowing our restless hearts will only find rest in Him. Rest in Him, beloved. At the feet of our Savior, self-conscious fears and grumbling can melt away, and we may find that we can’t help but to sing His praises and proclaim His salvation.

Father God, by Your grace and goodness, free us from our self-conscious fears, and give us courage to sing Your praises aloud to the watching world, proclaiming Your salvation from day-to-day.

Sometimes my heart is numb or my head is distracted when I read God’s Word, and mighty works like this one from today’s reading roll past my heart without registering the awesome power of our God. Not only that, but when I read about these expectant disciples in Joppa, I realize I don’t often expect God to do mighty things. But God awakened my heart through this story, reminding me that He most definitely continues to display His power throughout and within His creation. For just as God raised Tabitha from the dead, He raised us too! We were once dead in our sin, but “because of his great love that he had for us, [He] made us alive with Christ…[We] are saved by grace!” (Ephesians 2:4–5).

I’ll most likely be trying to wrap my head around this truth until I’m home in heaven. It wasn’t because we were “always doing good works and acts of charity” that God saved us. No, it is by His power and His grace and because of His unimaginable love for us that He willingly went to the cross.

Wherever you are and whatever your worries, struggles, uncertainties, hardships, sufferings today—stop, be still, and meditate on what is true: The God whose power is so mighty that He is able to raise people like Tabitha from the dead is the same God who pursues you and me. Whatever your current circumstances look like, whether they stir up fear or thanksgiving in your heart, we can remember this truth.

The LORD your God is among you,
a warrior who saves.
He will rejoice over you with gladness.
He will be quiet in his love.
He will delight in you with singing. 
—Zephaniah 3:17

If you are in Christ, your eternal life is secure because of Jesus. His blood has made this possible, but it was His love for you that led Him to the cross. He has raised you to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Rest in His mighty love for you today, for you are truly beloved indeed.

As daughters of the King, rather than living in worry and fear, we can rejoice in “the riches of his grace that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding” (Ephesians 1:7–8). I don’t know about you, but so often, I live in and wrestle with worry. When I hear that command to rejoice, I fall into discouragement because I know my life’s not marked by rejoicing. Paul was in prison when he wrote “Rejoice!” So why can’t I rejoice where I am today? I spin my wheels trying to figure out how to cultivate a life of joy and peace. Today’s reading reminds me that the answers to how we live this life of faith are found in God’s Word.

God knows how to bring us peace because He is the God of peace (Philippians 4:9). He knows what will bring us true joy. He is always near, and so there’s no reason to worry; His peace will guard our hearts and minds (vv.5–9).

We cannot add one moment to our days by worrying, and so we are to set our minds on the Spirit, who offers us “life and peace” (Matthew 6:27; Romans 8:6). Whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable—these are the things we should dwell on (Philippians 4:8). All of these things and more we are able to receive through His Spirit and His Word; He uses both to draw us to Himself.

Will we continue to worry, to set our minds on things of the flesh? Yes, we may always struggle with that. But we are saved by grace, works in progress; the One who’s begun a good work in us will carry it on to completion (Philippians 1:6). And that is truly a great cause for rejoicing because “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). Wherever we find ourselves today—even in dark seasons and in overwhelming situations—we can rest in Him and rejoice because the gospel is true.

But people-pleasing was apparently not much of an issue for the prophet Micaiah, who was perfectly fine with upsetting evil King Ahab—he only wanted to please and honor God. Ahab isn’t too fond of Micaiah’s prophesying, admitting to Jehosophat, “There is still one man who can inquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesies good about me, but only disaster” (1 Kings 22:8).

Knowing this to be true, Ahab’s servant “who went to call Micaiah instructed him, ‘Look, the words of the prophets are unanimously favorable for the king. So let your words be like theirs, and speak favorably’” (v.13). The messenger wanted the Lord’s prophet to choose to side with the majority, to make things easy. But to Micaiah, the choice was not his to make. “As the LORD lives,” he says, “I will say whatever the LORD says to me” (v.14).

Ahab called four hundred prophets to assure him he would be victorious in battle—four hundred prophets who had been instructed by a lying, evil spirit to tell King Ahab what he wanted to hear: that he would be successful (vv.20–23). But Jehosophat, the king of Judah who’d been witness to all of this, did not trust them, which is why he’d asked to see “a prophet of the LORD” in the first place (v.7).

Upon his arrival, “Micaiah told him, ‘March up and succeed. The LORD will hand it over to the king”—a message Ahab doesn’t believe because he doesn’t like the messenger (vv.15–16). And that’s when the Lord allows Micaiah to pull back the curtain to reveal Ahab’s true fate: “You see, the LORD has put a lying spirit into the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has pronounced disaster against you” (vv.17,19–23). But Ahab does not listen, and he dies in battle (vv.29–38).

Micaiah stood against the word of four hundred other prophets. He spoke the truth boldly to Ahab, who hated him. And he declared before them all, “I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and the whole heavenly army was standing by him at his right hand and at his left hand” (1 Kings 22:19). Micaiah chose to be obedient to the Lord who is enthroned above all kingdoms and rulers, all powers and principalities (Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 6:12; 1:20–23).

This is our reality as well, even when we choose to put someone or something else on the throne of our lives, elevating them above Him in our hearts. The truth of who God is does not change. He still graciously pursues us, drawing us into repentance, offering His mercy again and again, even in the midst of our sin (Romans 5:8). The one who has power over all shows compassion to those who fear Him (Psalm 103:12–13). “Bless the LORD, all his works in all the places where he rules. My soul, bless the LORD!” (v.22)

Prayer is coming to my Father as a needy child, acknowledging my inability to change situations or people or my own heart, and then acknowledging that God is mighty and that He reigns, ascribing worth to the Lord for who He is.

In Psalm 44, this kind of worship is modeled for us. Here, the psalmist is very real with his emotions. His plea is raw with vulnerability. He feels abandoned, yet he begins and ends the psalm in recognition of God’s faithful love for His people. Despite feeling rejected and forgotten, he comes back to what he knows to be true: God is faithful.

This is just one way prayer blesses, or “rewards,” us. When we turn to God in prayer, we are reminded of who He is and who we are not. There is relief in remembering that we are not the center of all things—not even our own lives. He is. And as He recenters us, He is able to do serious work in our hardened hearts as only He can, bringing peace when we feel fraught with anxiety.

Of course, the ultimate reward of prayer is being in relationship with the Lord Himself. Prayer can be a form of worship because engaging in prayer reminds us that He is in our midst, in the details of our lives. “God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Regardless of our circumstances, He is sovereign.

“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love” (Psalm 103:8). God knows our desperate need of Him, even when we don’t acknowledge it ourselves. He says, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). His presence alone is the perfect balm to our weary souls.

Prayer is an open invitation to relationship with God. It’s not always going to look pretty because we’re sinful, a broken and messy people. But Jesus’s blood covers all our sin—past, present, and future. He sees us in secret, knows the depths of our hearts, and loves us still.

The precepts of the LORD are right,
making the heart glad;
the command of the LORD is radiant,
making the eyes light up.
–Psalm 19:8

The Lord’s commands are “radiant”—brilliant and beaming beacons of light in this world—and this verse tells us they are able to bring us joy. Those words are poetry, yes, but they are also true and applicable. So do we believe them in a practical sense? Do we experience joy from God’s commands? Do we feed and thrive on faithfulness and obedience to God as Daniel did?

For Daniel, there was no room for discussion about obedience. Even when he knew he’d be thrown into the lion’s den for worshiping the Lord, “three times a day he got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before” (Daniel 6:10). Obedience and worship were a way of life for Daniel, a posture of his heart and indicative of his relationship with God, not just a response to crisis.

In giving our lives in obedience to the Lord, in doing “everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17), we ascribe worth to God, acknowledging that He alone is worthy of our worship, not only through our words but also through our actions. When we choose to live in accordance with God’s Word and His ways, we submit to His will and die to our own.

Living as an exile in Babylon most of his life, Daniel knew well that the earth was not his ultimate home, and he lived like it. He lived in obedience and continual service to his King, the Lord of heaven and of earth. Do we live like that? Do our lives look as radically obedient as Daniel’s life? Do the Lord’s commands bring light to our eyes or weight to our hearts? We know theoretically that God’s commands are for our good. But if we’re honest, we’re a wrecked, half-hearted people who worship so many other things with our lives.

But “the LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8); He does not leave us to ourselves. While we were still lost to our sin, Jesus Christ came to save us from ourselves, humbling “himself by becoming obedient to the point of death” (Romans 5:8; Philippians 2:7–8). Even now, He is sanctifying us into a people who will worship Him with our whole heart and whole lives in obedience to Him (2 Corinthians 3:18). The One who calls us to obedience gives us everything we need to obey Him (2 Peter 1:3).