Praise The Lord!
“Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance.”
We need to praise God - We need to praise Him unconditionally!
We need to praise Him, not just because things are going right or even if things are going wrong - we need to praise Him.
Why? Because He is worthy of our praise.
"But Angus, how can I praise Him when I am suffering from illness or I have lost a loved one, my business has gone bankrupt or I am without work.?" You don’t praise Him because of the tragedy, you praise Him through it because He is able to bring you and me out of it... He will bring us out of it.
Praise Him - Praise is to express respect and gratitude towards the Lord Jesus. You see, there is power in praise. Remember what you say is what you get.
Remember Job, that old farmer? They say the book of Job is the oldest in the world. His wife said to him when he was going through his hard times: "Why don’t you curse God and die?" (Job 2:9)
But Job said to her: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." (Job 13:15) - But folks, look how it all ended up at the end:
“Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep, (how would you like to own that?) six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys." Job 42:12
God also blessed him... He had seven sons and three daughters at the end of his life and by the way, Job lived to one hundred and forty years. So we need to praise the Lord.
Often in the morning early I take my bicycle, sometimes even before the sun comes up (I have a light on my bike) and I ride down the road and I praise the Lord at the top of my voice. I think some of the locals must think I have lost my mind but I praise Him because I love Him and because He is praise-worthy! Don’t be like that old farmer, when the sun comes up in the morning, he says: "Here comes the drought." and when the clouds come up at midday, he says: "Here come the floods." He is never, ever happy... but praise the Lord.
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28
You know, I just think of David Livingstone, one of my heroes and probably the most famous missionary ever to set foot in Africa... He had walked from Cape Town, right into Central Africa and then he decided to walk west towards Luanda, to the Atlantic Ocean and catch a ship back to Britain - But you know, because of hardship, fever, the bush and the jungle, he missed his ship. He was devastated. He had been walking for months but only to find out later that that ship just outside Madeira and all were lost.
You see, we don’t know what God is doing in our lives but we know one thing - we need to praise Him unconditionally.
Have a lovely day - Praise the Lord!