HomeWord - Jan. 1, 2008

Praise the Lord 
This devotional was written by Kelly McFadden

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.” Psalms 118:1

Recently during a church service, we were singing the song “Blessed Be Your Name.”  As we sat in the service worshiping through this song, I was completely overwhelmed to tears.  At the beginning of this year God taught me a hugely important lesson.  He taught me that we have victory in Him today and every day…even when our prayers do not get answered in the way we hope.  Now months later, He is teaching me that when those prayers do get answered, the victory hasn’t changed, but it is important to celebrate. 

The verse we sang goes as follows:

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord 
Blessed be Your name 

Recently, a longtime prayer request was answered, but I struggled in how to celebrate the answer.  For two years, my husband and I had been praying that I might become pregnant.  In the midst of those prayers, God showed me that whether or not He answered my prayer with a pregnancy, I still had complete victory in Him.  So when I got pregnant, it was hard for me to figure out how to best share the news of the blessing, for I did not want to cheapen the ultimate victory found in Jesus. 

What I realized as I read Psalm 118 and sang out “Blessed be Your Name” was that my role in every answered prayer was to turn that blessing back to praise.  So I gladly want to shout out and praise the Lord for our answered prayer, the coming of our first child.  The Lord has given us a blessing, so we will sing  praises to Him!

All blessings we receive, no matter how small or large, are from the Lord.  It is our responsibility and role to turn those blessings around and to praise God, for His love endures forever.

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GOING DEEPER:

1. What blessings in your life you can praise the Lord for?

2. No matter what prayers have been answered as you wanted or not answered as you wanted, the Lord still hears clearly.  What are ways you can praise the Lord even when you are not necessarily getting what you want?

FURTHER READING:

Psalm 117l; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15; 1 John 2:29-3:1

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