30 Days of Praise - Day 18

Life is full of interruptions. Just when you think things are running along on a track, you find there is no track at all.

Sudden illnesses, accidents, even death, can jar your world in a completely unexpected manner. Good things can jar you too, a pregnancy, a job promotion, any of these things can make life seem like it's taken a sharp turn.

You can go to bed at night blissful, and be awakened with one of "those" phone calls in the middle of the night, and your whole world could seemingly crumble. The one you love might come home from work one day and tell you they don't love you anymore, or they've met someone else.

Or you could go to sleep wondering how your going to pay the rent or buy groceries, and wake up and find a check in the mail, or groceries on the front porch. Interruptions, life is full of them.

I praise God for the anchor of faith that holds outside of circumstance. I praise Him for being there in the midst of every circumstance, and when darkness comes, holding to Him means holding to the hope of what a new day will bring.

I praise God that when we as believers grieve, we can grieve with that hope. I praise God that I do not have to be overwhelmed about the doctor bill that's coming, or the income that isn't, because when worry creeps up on me, I have a place to take it, lay it, and LEAVE it.

I praise God that though I may be completely thrown by an interruption, God knew it was coming, and He is prepared for it, and more importantly to help me and grow me through it. I praise God that I have the confidence that whatever I may face in life, it has come through the filter of a loving Father and that there is purpose in it, even in suffering.

I praise God for the purposefulness of life, that it isn't random, and that the Lord is sovereign and is with me, for me, and watching over me, in everything, and every day. And I praise God that this isn't just true for me, but for all of His children.

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart" Jeremiah 29:11-13

"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. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified." Romans 8:28-30

"In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." Hebrews 6:17-20