My Mouth Will Speak in Praise of the Lord

"The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. The Lord is near to all who call on him; he hears their cry and saves them. The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord. Let every creature praise his holy name forever and ever." Psalm 145:17-21

The past few weeks at BSF we have been studying about how God continually rescued the Israelites in spite of all of their groaning and complaining. Ouch! How I can relate to those Israelites. So often we think that grumbling is okay and we disguise it with catch words like "venting." But in reality, we are complaining about God. Every situation in our lives, from someone cutting us off in traffic to the death of a loved one, is allowed by him for a purpose and to complain about it is sin. We are saying that God's plan for our lives isn't good enough. That we know better than Him. We are feeling inconvenienced because things didn't go the way we thought they should. He never promised us that things would be easy - only that he would be with us when they got hard.

This week has been hard for me. The death of my G-ma triggered other events in my life that I'm not quite ready to share yet. I have found myself complaining. Part of that has been a mourning of ideas and expectations that I had about a situation, which is natural and healthy. But, there has been another part of me that has been complaining and even pouty about how "it's not supposed to be like this." Who am I to say that? Obviously, because God has allowed it, it is supposed to be like this. Nothing surprises Him! I have to learn that God has allowed it for a reason. I don't know what that is just yet, I don't know exactly what the outcome will be, but I do know that God is with me and is proving to be faithful in my pain. And proving to love and provide for me in spite of my complaining. Just like the Israelites.

This entire situation has been brought on by another persons sin. I am suffering the consequences of that. It does not seem to be fair but that is not the point. The point is, what am I going to do with the situation now that it has affected my life? How can I deal with this in such a way that it enhances the reputation of Christ?

The other thing that we have been studying is how Jethro came to visit Moses in the desert. (Jethro was Moses' father-in-law who came after hearing all that God had done.) Moses sat down with him and told him everything! Like the plaques, the Passover, freeing the Israelites from slavery, the parting of the Red Sea, turning bitter water sweet, providing water from a rock when there was none, leading 2 million plus people by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night, the quail and the manna, and I could go on and on. Jethro listened and was amazed. When they were all finished, Jethro said, "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods." (Exodus 18:11)

When we begin to complain, we quickly forget all the wonderful and amazing things God has done in our lives! We focus so much on what we think is negative, that we can't see God. I can honestly say that the things in my life that I thought were so negative, truly turned out to be the most positive blessings ever. One thing that I need to always be reminded of is that when things get difficult, we need to look back and focus on all the positive things God has done for us in the past and rely on the fact that He will do that again! He will take the negative and make it a blessing. ("For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28) He will grow us and strengthen us through the difficult times. And then, we are to share those things with others, like Moses did with Jethro, so that they will see that the Lord is greater than anything else out there that they are putting their trust in. That's enhancing God's reputation!

I look forward to one day being able to share with you all that God is going to do in my current situation. I can't know that yet, and to share at this time would just be complaining. But pray that God will heal the situation in His way and in His time and that I can truly let go and let Him do it. (I'm such a fixer!) Ultimately, I want to grow in this and bring God the greatest amount of glory possible. That is, after all, why I am still here. God will heal it - His reputation is at stake and He cannot fail. He has a plan and it will come to be. In the meantime, I'm going to deal with it by focusing on all the positive and I'm going to be thankful........