For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise. ~ Psalm 96:4a
I struck out the year to be intentional and yet....Let's just say that in the first month I have struggled I have been raw and I have been tired. Just look at the start of a few my journal entries.
1-13 ~ “Lord – I am at my wits end.” 1-15 ~ “My heart is heavy with concern…” 1-21~ “My stomach hurts. I am worn. I am weary. And this pen is barley working as I write this. I feel empty this morning. Directionless. I am aimless and I long to return to bed and shut off the light.” 1-22 ~ “Yesterday – again… but I have a better pen.” 1-23 ~” Yesterday – again.”
I am not writing this for sympathy. I am not writing to whine.
But in God’s everlasting goodness He didn’t leave me there. A week ago I chose to praise God no matter how I felt. No matter the answers or lack of answers to prayer. This past week a huge answer to prayer showed up in a way that knocked me over. It was a God thing. Only way to describe it.
However, I was convicted this morning in my quiet time by these words. “God desires your response to His love to be without the prompting of anything external.” (Streams in The Desert. P.68)
Bam. Ouch. It hit me like a tone of bricks.
I feel so blessed right now as I reflect on how God answered my prayer. Yet, I am no more blessed than I was a week ago. I am blessed to simply know God. To now he goes before me. To know he has my heath, my writing, my finances, and my family in His hands.
But these truths are no more true because he opened the treasury of heaven and provided an answer. Just as they would be no less true if He had chosen not to.
God simply is.
He is good. He is perfect. He is working out all things. He is with me. He is going before me. He is love. He is light. He is LORD.
All response from me is and always should be praise. Not that we shouldn’t have emotion. But may I remember that even in my emotional ups and downs, whether the answers to my prayer are yes or no, or how I feel, that God is good, true, and on my side.
May my response be praise simply because HE IS.