You have turned for me my mourning into dancing. You’ve loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
– Psalm 30:11–12
It’s really interesting. Even as I was just sitting down to record this podcast episode, some things were brought to my attention that are really heavy on my heart. And I come to Psalm 30 and every read that God turns mourning into dancing. Earlier in this chapter, in Psalm 30:5, the psalmist says, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
Psalm 30:11–12 Teaches How God Grants Joy after Trials
And this is just the encouragement I want to give you today, pray over you today, especially if there are things that are heavy on your heart. If there is mourning or weeping in your life right now, or just for you to store this away for days when mourning and weeping come, to know that with our God, weeping and mourning are never the end of the story. Weeping may tarry for the night, Psalm 30:5, “but joy comes with the morning.”
God turns mourning into dancing. He doesn’t just take away mourning, he turns it into dancing. What a picture of going from one extreme to the other. All of this possible because our God has come to this world of sorrow and mourning and sin and sadness and death, and our God has conquered it all. He has defeated sin. Jesus, dying on the cross, rising from the grave, He has conquered death itself. And He has promised that, “In this world we will have tribulation, we will have weeping, we will have mourning. But take heart,” He says to His disciples, “I have overcome this world.”
Psalm 30:11–12 Expresses the Psalmist Gratitude for God’s Deliverance
So that the psalmist here in Psalm 30, before he knew all that would happen in Jesus says, “My glory will sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever.” Just think about that word, forever. For all of eternity, we will give thanks to God. It’s no coincidence that when you get to Revelation and you see heaven described multiple times, God tells us He will wipe every tear from our eyes. Oh God, we look forward to that day when weeping will be no more and sin will be no more, sorrow and sadness and death will be no more.
We pray, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Bring your justice on the earth. Bring an end to sorrow and sin and sadness and death. We long for your return. And we pray that you would help us to hold on to hope in the weeping and the mourning. I pray particularly right now over every person who is listening to this, who is in a time of mourning or weeping or just things heavy on their heart. God, we pray that you would give them strength and peace and hope in the middle of the mourning, knowing that one day you will turn their mourning into dancing.
Praying for the Nuristani People
And God, we pray this for people in the world who are struggling, who are suffering, who have no knowledge of the hope that’s found in Jesus. We can’t imagine weeping and mourning without that hope. God, we pray for the Nuristani people of Afghanistan, especially amidst all the suffering of the people of Afghanistan. Lord, we pray that you would cause the gospel to spread to the Nuristani people, no known followers of Jesus among them speaking the Waigali language.
God, please, please cause the good news of your grace and your hope and your joy and your life and your conquering death on their behalf to spread to them. And God, we pray that you would use our lives however you desire to spread your hope in a world of mourning and sin and sorrow and death, to spread the good news of life and peace and joy in Jesus. In His name we pray, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
