Command Your Soul to Worship
Joy no matter what with Olivia Lane
“God truly is a present help in time of need,” Christian artist, songwriter, and radio personality Olivia Lane says. It’s a truth she’s leaned on through seven years of walking with the Lord. “It kind of seems like His love language is obedience,” she reflects.
Olivia describes that obedience. “Sometimes the miracle is a big physical something we can see. But sometimes the miracle is just His joy, His peace washing over you when you can’t see outside of the heartbreak or the pain.”
“It is a paradox that we live in the Christian life,” Olivia adds. “Even though our circumstances might be crazy, terrible, awful, we have access to joy all the time.”
She points to a practice, not just a feeling. “I’ve been convicted to do what David says, and command my soul to listen to my spirit,” she explains, echoing David’s own words to himself: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42:11 NIV). “In that moment of worry, to worship. In that moment of grief, to worship. Because that’s where the joy is. God literally is joy Himself.”
Olivia put that practice to the test in a season that handed her two griefs at once. She and her husband were trying to get pregnant, and month after month passed with no answer. “Your mind goes to all of these places of worry,” she admits. In that same season, her grandfather passed away. “That grief distracted me, but it also shocked me out of what I was dealing with,” she says. “God used that grief to pull me out of this other grief.”
“I Am Here in This”
Oliva shares the Lord’s response. “He says, ‘I am here in this. I’m here in this journey of getting pregnant. I’m also here in the passing away of your grandfather.'”
Olivia realized she’d been reaching for peace in the wrong places. “I was trying to go to my husband for peace. I was trying to go to my career for peace, and I wasn’t finding it in the true, deep way that I needed. I was thirsty; I was hungry for the bread of life,” she recalls. What she found instead reshaped how she sees everything else God gives her. “The gifts are beautiful blessings,” she says, “but they’re borrowed blessings.” ”
Maybe your circumstances feel crazy, terrible, awful right now too. You don’t have to wait for them to change before you worship. Command your soul the way David did — say it out loud if you have to. He’s already in this with you, and He’s still your source of greatest joy.
Want to go deeper?
The Joy That Holds You, a free 7-day devotional on YouVersion, walks you from understanding what real joy is to discovering where it comes from and how it holds you up even on your hardest days. Through scripture and reflection, you’ll learn to receive joy instead of chasing it—joy that never runs out.
Take the next step toward a strength that holds steady no matter what kind of day you’re having.