I recently discovered Mark Hamilton’s blog, and have started reading through his series on worship and their relation to the Psalms. One of the ones which stuck out to me was his discussion of Psalm 3, and our tendency to make worship a “power of positive thinking” event:
One of the more disturbing aspects of worship in Christian congregations today is the strong bias toward good cheer and superficial encouragement, no matter the circumstances, no matter the feelings that people bring with them to the service, no matter how much we have to hide or deny to keep up the facade. In some places, we do not confess our sins, do not acknowledge systemic evil in the world, do not lament the suffering of people (unless someone runs a plane into a building), as if we believed that hope can only survive in a pretend world.
Definitely worth the read.