If your joy is contingent on the platform, the platform will eventually take it from you. It’s just a matter of which Sunday.
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
Habakkuk 3:17-18 (NIV)
What’s actually going on
A lot of worship leaders entered ministry on a wave of joy and now don’t quite remember where it went. It probably wasn’t one event. It was the accumulation. The hard volunteer conversation. The pastor’s note about song selection. The Sunday that bombed. The Sunday that didn’t bomb but felt empty anyway.
The platform used to refill the joy. Now it sometimes drains it. And we don’t really know who to tell, because we’re the worship leaders. We’re supposed to be the joyful ones.
So we learn to fake it on Sunday and feel a little farther from it on Tuesday. Eventually you wonder if joy was even the right word for what you used to have, or if you’ve just been tired this whole time.
Habakkuk doesn’t write a worship song from a place where everything is going well. He writes one from a place where nothing is. No fig tree. No grapes. No sheep. The whole infrastructure of his life is failing.
And he says, “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD.” He doesn’t say, “I feel rejoicing.” He says, “I will.” It’s a decision before it’s a feeling, and it’s anchored to Someone, not to circumstances.
What’s true
The joy of the Lord is not the same thing as the joy of a Sunday going well. The first one is a gift He gives. It comes out of who He is. The second one is a gift the platform gives, sometimes. It comes out of a hundred variables you can’t control.
If your joy is contingent on the platform, the platform will eventually take it from you. It’s just a matter of which Sunday. That’s not cynicism. That’s the math of putting an infinite weight on a finite thing.
Habakkuk’s joy survived the failure of literally every other source of joy in his world. That kind of joy isn’t manufactured. It’s received. From a Father whose mood toward you didn’t change when this Sunday’s set wasn’t your best.
He’s still glad about you. You can be glad with Him. That’s where the joy starts coming back, and it doesn’t need the platform’s permission.
For your team
- Where was the joy when you started leading worship, and where did it go?
- What’s currently providing your sense of joy in ministry, and what would happen if that thing stopped working?
- Is there a single thing about Jesus, not about ministry, that still genuinely lights you up? Sit with it for a moment.
Pray this
Lord, You haven’t stopped being a source of joy. I have stopped looking. Teach me again how to rejoice in You when the fig tree doesn’t bud. Amen.
This Sunday
Before you walk on stage, name one thing about Jesus that delights you. Not about ministry. About Him. Carry it with you to the first chord.
Go deeper
In the network: Search “When the Platform Stops Refilling You” for the talk on joy as a worship leader’s birthright. Free at thechurchcollective.mn.co.
For more on the slow drift from meaning, read When the Chorus Stopped Meaning Anything.
This devotional is part of The Church Collective’s free 52-week worship team devotional series. Get the first 12 as a free PDF and a fresh devotional in your inbox every Monday morning.
Surrender in the Place No One Sees You