“Praising God for the bad stuff?”~Sarah Rook

Guest Post by Sarah Rook, South Wales

I learn’t some time ago that praise was better than pleading. I used to plead..’ Pleaseeeeeeeeee God, pleaseeeeeeeeeeee’… I noticed my prayers rarely got answered. Why?

As I grew as a Christian I started to learn that praise was the way to go. This verse is only ONE of the many, many scriptures that tell us to do so:

1 Thessalonians 5:18give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

The one that keeps me going and is:

Romans 8:28: And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Everything that Satan ‘trys’ to make wrong, can be turned around for good…God promises this! Just keep praising him…regardless! Stop moaning, complaining, crying…everyone has hard times, but what is that going to do? It’s going to make the devil happy and seriously, I don’t know about you but he doesn’t deserve an ounce of my time.

Just one of my more recent prayers that got answered was thanking God in advance for my husbands salvation. I prayed like this for a few years. 2 weeks ago he received Jesus into his heart. All my prayers of thanks must of rolled into one huge ball because I felt like exploding with Joy and Thanks to JESUS!!!I’ve never felt such Joy!

About the same time I started reading a book called “Praise Works” by Merin Carothers (thank you second hand shop…cost me .20c). It has opened my eyes to praise. I realised WHY praise is essential in all areas. During the good and especially the bad. As an example I will tell you how praise has worked in the last week for me during a few small bad situations.

Last week our van, which also happens to be 100% of our business wouldn’t start. Without a van, I have no work. Instead of feeling anxiety about this I felt a complete peace, so I started praising God for the van breaking down. The next day it was towed as we were told there were a few problems. One hour later I was rung by the mechanics “Your van is fine! infact you had a leak in the cooling system, but we’ve fixed it and there’s no cost”. Praising God for this gave me even more reason to praise again – the feeling of overwhelming thanks to God keeps building. So when our beloved Coffee machine started playing up 3 days ago (Which creates most of our business income), I felt anxious… I knew we’d loose customers, we’d have to get the machine looked at, the cost…etc. This lasted for about 20 minutes.  I heard God telling me on the way to work to praise him again. So I did. “Thank you Lord for horrible, watery tasting coffee” – that’s the words I used, but I did it with a joyful heart and a big smile – God loves humour. Once again I felt peace.

When I got to our destination I made myself a coffee…BEAUTIFUL!!! I had people come back for 2nds…:-)…God is so awesome I can’t thank him enough.

This is only small areas, but I’d rather learn about praise in the small areas first then miss out on praising him for whatever may turn up in the future that is large. Giving thanks in every area is essential. Right now I believe my prayers of Thanks will heal my son of his disabilities. Thanks God for his seizures. Thanks God for his disabilities. You know our future, not me. Thank you that your Will, WILL be done!!!