I recently heard someone say that this life on earth is the only place we will ever get to worship God in the middle of a storm.

And I haven’t stopped thinking about it.

Because one day, there will be no storms.  No grief.  No fear.  No anxiety.  No unanswered prayers.  No wondering where God is.

\We will be with Him.

We will see Him.

But here, we don’t always see Him.

Here, sometimes we worship while our hearts are breaking.  Sometimes we say, “God, I trust You,” while every feeling inside of us is screaming that we shouldn’t.

Sometimes we search for Him in the storm because, if we’re honest, He feels incredibly hard to find.

And I don’t think that means our faith is failing.  I think there is something incredibly sacred about choosing Him there.

No one wants the storm.

I don’t think we need to romanticize suffering or pretend we are thankful for things that have broken our hearts.

But maybe there is something available to us inside of these places that we will never get to experience again.

Because someday, there will be no need to trust God in spite of what we see.

Faith will become sight.

Someday, I will worship God without fear.

But today, I get to worship Him while I’m afraid.

Someday, I will worship without grief.

Today, I get to worship Him with tears in my eyes.

Someday, I will know completely that He is near.

Today, I get to reach for Him when He feels far away.

Someday, faith will become sight.

Today, I get to believe before I can see.

Hebrews calls it a “sacrifice of praise.”

Sometimes we are saying God is good when we don’t understand what He is doing.

We are choosing to trust His character when we cannot see His plan.

We are reaching toward Him while some part of us still wants to pull away.

Peter wrote something that feels especially beautiful to me when I think about this:

“Though you have not seen Him, you love Him.” I Peter 1:8

That’s us.  We haven’t seen Him.  And yet, we love Him.

We pray to Someone our eyes have never looked upon.  We trust promises we have not yet seen completely fulfilled.

We believe before we can see.

But one day, we will see.

There will be no searching for Jesus in the storm because there won’t be a storm anymore.

There will be no clinging to Him in the darkness because there won’t be any darkness left.

So while I would never wish for the hard things, I also don’t want to miss what is possible inside of them.

I want to know what it is to worship a God I cannot see.

To trust Him when I don’t understand.
To reach for Him when my heart is broken.
To love Him before I have ever seen His face.

Because I will have all of eternity to worship God in the light.

But I only have this life to worship Him in the storm.