Do you ever feel like all the worship songs you hear are just too hard to sing? Their words echo truth, but the experiences of your heart lately seem to say otherwise. It can feel fake and insincere to sing words you don’t mean, with barely a trace of joy in your voice.

Psalm 96:1-2 says, “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord all the earth.”

If the old songs don’t seem to give proper praise to God in this season of life, try singing a new song. I believe that we can always sing a song to the Lord because his nature never changes, but we won’t always be able to wholeheartedly sing about his bountiful provision or his protection from harm.

Sometimes his protection seems more like laying us bare to the storm, yet he never changes. God’s goodness will endure, even in hardship. The manifestation of his love looks different in times of trial than in times of ease, and this might require us to write some new lyrics to sing.

So sing songs with new meaning, change up the words, or scrap the whole thing and search elsewhere. Worship doesn’t have to be the overly-happy tone it normally seems to take on. If we pray through worship, then why couldn’t it be pleading or mournful or frustrated? Taking a cue from Psalms, the hymnbook of the saints, we can see that a truthful song conveys every aspect of life: hardships, blessings, faithfulness, righteousness, justice, wickedness, joy, love, hatred, etc. God is no stranger to what we’re going through or how we’re feeling. God wants our honest hearts. He sees right through our masks and wants us as we are in the moment.

His love for us is weaved throughout our difficulties, enabling us to sing of his salvation, of his love, and of his everlasting glory.

So sing, even if it doesn’t sound like the upbeat praise you’ve sang before. Sometimes the old song just won’t do.