Bizarre Praise

"Eucharisteo- thanksgiving-

Always precedes the miracle"

Ann Voskamp

Eucharisteo- to be grateful, to feel thankful. (Strong's Concordance)

You've waited, you've watched. You've hoped with eager expectation. You can hear, feel your heart pounding loudly all within you. Anticipating. Then it happens. The moment where all your dreams come true. The instance in which everything you've longed for comes to pass. And you give thanks, "Yes, yes Lord, thank you... thank you for this. Thank you for this promise fulfilled. Thank you for this good thing."

And I don't even realize that I've put Him in that box. That box where I have a desire, He fulfills it, and I give thanks. I've made my praise of Him merely a response to what He does for me. My praise of Him has been selfish. My praise has not really been praise at all, but what any normal person would do. It's normal to give thanks when someone does something that pleases you.

Oh, but His Spirit is teaching me.

"My dear God,

I have never thanked You for my thorns.

I have thanked you a thousand times for my roses

but not once for my thorns."

George Matheson

You see, God is doing something strange within me. It's bizarre. It's different. It's unexpected. It's unusual, and abnormal. It's foolishness to the world. It almost seems twisted. But he's teaching me to praise Him for thorns.

No. He's not teaching me to merely say, "Thank you" when faced with a thorn, but then secretly scorn Him for it. He is teaching me eucharisteo, to be grateful to feel thankful for thorns.

Genuine possessing of a thanks-giving soul within me in all things.

How? Because I know my God... And to know Him is to trust Him... and to trust Him is to praise Him in all things.

To praise Him only when He does that which I would consider good is to diminish His very nature. It is in essence to say He is only worthy of praise when He does that which you want.

Oh, but He is always worthy of praise.

In everything. Always. Here. Now. This. HE is worthy of praise.

In weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. HE is worthy of praise.

I stand strong with no other weapon but praise on my lips, and I watch my enemies flee, defeated. To praise Him with the multitudes before me, is to rest my very soul in trust to Him... and He cannot fail. They have no choice but to run.

"And when he (Jehoshaphat)

Had consulted with the people,

He appointed those who should sing to the LORD,

And who should praise the beauty of holiness,

As they went out before the army and were saying:

“Praise the LORD,

For His mercy endures forever.”

Now when they began to sing and to praise,

The LORD set ambushes against

The people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir,

Who had come against Judah;

and they were defeated. "

(2 Chronicles 20:21-22)