Psalm 34:1-4 I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will glory in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.
Psalm 63:3-4 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
I Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Do you ever just want to turn everything off…the news, the TV, the radio? Ugghh! That old saying, “No news is good news” has a whole lot of weight to it recently! I’m so very tired of all of the bad news that I keep hearing. There is so much evil going on in this world right now that it’s hard to see the good. It makes me want to run away to a desert island somewhere and just get away from it all…but then there’s God. No matter what is going on in this crazy world, I know that God is right here with me, seeing me through every challenge, and guiding my way so there is no need to run away. I only need to run…to Him!
I think we all create a perfect picture in our minds of how our lives are supposed to look, and when things happen that change the look of our lives, we may briefly forget that God is still right there with us. We can’t lose hope though. We can praise God through the storm because we have faith that His plan is always so much better than our plan!
David is a great example. He was the golden child anointed to be the next king. In his youth, he slayed the giant Goliath. He led multiple successful military campaigns, and he even married the daughter of King Saul. He must have had a beautiful picture in his mind of how his life would be. He served the Lord faithfully except for that one little hiccup with Bathsheba. Yet even with the almost perfect life, David found himself running from Saul, who wanted to kill him, for about 10 years and later running from his own son. But what did David do? He praised God. He knew that God would see him through whatever sticky situation that came his way, so he simply praised God. Take some time to read through the Psalms. David journaled his life in song and poetry in the Psalms. He cried out to God in anguish, but He never stopped praising Him!
We have to realize that God’s destiny for our lives doesn’t change because of our circumstances. The picture perfect life we have in our mind’s eye doesn’t even come close to the perfect plan that God has in store for us.
Although our lives look nothing like we pictured them at the moment, we can still praise God and rejoice in Him and His promises. He has big plans in store for us, and I’m willing to bet that it’s a picture perfect plan!
Inspirations from the Funny Farm 