True Worship Begins in the Wilderness

We all long for the joy of Psalm 150 — cymbals clashing, dancing, and everything that has breath praising the Lord. But more often than not, our worship begins in a much different place — in the shadows of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

The truth is, life doesn’t always follow the neat formula of Psalm 1, where the righteous prosper and the wicked fail. Sometimes the opposite seems true. Sometimes prayers go unanswered. Sometimes God feels silent. Those are the wilderness seasons — seasons of grief, doubt, discouragement, and loss.

But here’s the hope: the wilderness is not wasted. It’s in those dry and lonely places that God strips away what we thought we needed, so He can show us what we truly need — Himself. In the wilderness we wrestle with God, we learn to trust His heart even when we can’t trace His hand, and we discover that worship isn’t about feelings or circumstances, but about declaring His worth even in the silence.

in this weeks message, we’ll walk through the journey the Psalms lay out — from order, to disorder, to reorder — and see how the wilderness can become the very place God transforms our pain into praise.

The wilderness isn’t the end of your story; it’s the pathway to glory.