Mourning into Dancing

Greater and Lesser Wows

In this day and age of reels, we are constantly being wowed. On my feed I can go from a video of an insane trick shot performed on someone’s driveway, to a mile-long Rube Goldberg machine, to a super slow-motion shot of a watermelon exploding, to someone cooking an exotic seafood dish somewhere in East Asia in a quantity that would literally feed a village. In five minutes you can see immaculate chocolate sculpture, an animal you’ve never heard of doing something you didn’t know was possible, and someone create a life-size replica of a car out of legos that drives.

And though these are all very different videos, they all are trying to wow us. Make us say, “that’s so cool!” And it turns out, there are lots of wow-worthy stuff out there. But I think sometimes if we get saturated in lesser wows, we might stop being wowed by God.

Psalm 30 is a good Psalm for reminding us what should wow us about God. Psalm 30 is a Psalm of praise. Praise is our response to being wowed by God, by either telling him or others. And this Psalm reminds us what about God should wow us, by pointing to his transforming power. In this Psalm God keeps turning one thing into another. One person I read said that in Psalm 30 God is “The Great Reverser.”

So in this Psalm we’re going to look at three great reversals that God performs, three transformations that God brings about.

1. v1-5 God turns death into life
2. v6-10 God turns prosperity into adversity
3. v11-12 God turns mourning into dancing

And I hope that as we consider these things you’ll be freshly wowed by God and praise him and thank him for what he’s done.

First, God turns death into life (Ps 30:1-5)

We learn in verses 1-3 why David is praising God: because God had saved him from Sheol – the place of the dead. God had brought life out of death for David. These verses are ultimately fulfilled in Jesus’ resurrection. David  responds to God’s deliverance with infectious praise, calling all God’s people to praise him.

Second, God brings adversity out of prosperity (Ps 30:6-10)

David explains how he had come to be in such a desperate position. It all started with self-satisfied prosperity. David failed to recognize that his strength and power came from God. God hid his face from David, bringing misery into David’s life. This is the experience of all God’s people. He hides his face from us, either to discipline us because of our sin, or because he chooses to test and refine us. God turns our prosperity into adversity to bring about a greater kind of prosperity in our lives. Our response, like David, should be to pray to God, even arguing with him based on the truth of his word.

Third, God turns mourning into dancing (Ps 30:11-12)

Sometimes this surprises us most. God not only can bring life out of death, but that God can undo the effects of sin and death. Jesus has told us that he wants his disciples to have joy. We look forward to joy in heaven. But we also should enjoy our salvation in this life. David said God had turned his mourning into dancing. Joy was a present reality for him. Christians have all the more reasons to have joy. With Paul, we are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (2 Cor 6:10). When we’re wowed by God, we live joyfully, and look forward to praising him forever.