18 Jul Trusting and Praising God in Trails

In the Christian walk it is easy to trust and praise God: when all, things are going well and, when everything falls in its perfect order and when things seems possible from human strength. We often trust easily what we are able to see, feel, think and sense. As if our faith is based on human logic and our feelings. Isn’t it?

But on the contrary, when things get worse, when we pass through darkest disasters and lose things with no chances of recovery, are we able to trust God ?

King David got help when he trusted God in his life’s darkest moments (Ps. 28:7).

David’s trust in God was not based on what he saw, his trust was on who our God is and how mighty He is! Even when he was surrounded by enemies David chose to trust God alone.
O my God, I trust in You; Let me not be ashamed; Let not my enemies triumph over me– Ps. 25:2

Here, the unshakable truth is you will get Victory by default when you cling to God in complete trust.
Trusting God is a character which gradually grows through the seasons of trials. We need to trust our strong and all-powerful, eternal Father, who is fully capable of handling our cases. When we feel like God is doing nothing in our trials, that’s probably when He’s doing the most. Trust Him and be still, God can hold you through any storm of your life. You can trust your unknown future to all powerful God, who can handle anything with his power. Trials serve to refine us to the point where we trust more in the Lord than in ourselves.

When our foundation is on the Solid rock Jesus Christ- no storm, no trail can harm us. In fact, they will come and shape us into the image of Christ and we will become stronger in our faith. Trials often help us to grow deeper into the word of God and relationship with God; there is absolute growth for your spirit through the trails.

Paul and Silas were stripped, beaten hard and imprisoned. In spite of this dismal situation, they chose to praise God. Many times we pray to God during our trials, but we don’t praise Him. What made them to praise God in prison?

Praise is based on total and joyful acceptance of the present situation (Prison) as part of God’s loving, perfect will for us. It is not based on what we think or hope will happen in the future. This is an absolute “law”, a clearly observable in the practice of praise.
We praise God, not for what we expect will happen around us, but we praise Him for what He is and where and how we are right now!
It is, of course, a fact that when we honestly praise God, something does happen as a result. His power obviously flows into the situation. But that must not be the motivation of our praise.

Praise is not bargaining position, we don’t say, I will praise you so that you can bless me, Lord.

To praise God is to delight ourselves in Him. The Psalmist wrote “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart “-(Ps 37:4). Notice the order here, we don’t make a list of our heart’s desires and then delight ourselves in the Lord in order to get them. When we first delight in God, we will discover that everything else becomes secondary. Still, it is true that God does want to give us all our heart’s desires. Nothing short of that is His wish and plan for us. If only we learn to be delighted in the Lord first!

In Paul and Silas case, they were stripped, beaten hard and imprisoned, but the joy of the Lord didn’t hinder them to praise God in prison, they considered it as a part of God’s loving and perfect will for them and suddenly, a great earthquake came, all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.

Today, no matter how worse your situations are, no matter what prison of the troubles you are facing, instead of grumbling and complaining to the Lord, let the joy of the Lord in your spirit show that your prison is a palace in the presence of God, by putting complete trust upon God and praise Him that your prison of trails is a part of God’s will to work for your good.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose –Rom 8:28
Know that God is your loving Father, He has promised to care for you and He will never leave you nor forsake you. He is trustworthy no matter what your situation is! He is faithful!

Don’t give any room for the devil to make you doubt God’s love by thinking your situation will never change. You may look at your circumstances and leap to the conclusion that God has abandoned you, but the fact is, God still loves you. He has a plan for your deliverance and at the right time He will act. “He makes all things beautiful in His time”- Eccl. 3:11.
Just trust Him and praise him because He is faithful. Make a resolution now itself that no matter what kind of trouble you face today, just trust God and in His eternal word, and Praise him irrespective of your background and unchanging hopeless situations. May God help us to trust and praise God in trials.

Rama Methuku, Hyderabad