Page 10 - praiseandthanks

It is Hab 3: 15-19 that is the most well-known and famous

quote. Although the prophet has lost everything he is still able
to praise God: “For even though the fig tree does not blossom,

nor fruit grow on the vine, even though the olive crop fail and

the fields produce no harvest, even though the flocks vanish
from the folds and the stalls stand empty of cattle, yet I will

rejoice in the Lord and exult in God my Saviour. The Lord my

God is my strength. He makes me leap like the deer. He guides
me to the high places.” I will be like that Lord. I will never cease

praising you and thanking you as did the prophet. I will praise

you, praise you, praise you with my last breath praising you as
is and thanking you through the years through the bad times,

the un-encouraging signs around me, the terrible symptoms still
evident in my health, praising and thanking you because of

your beautiful plan, caring plan, intricate plan, very best plan.

Such praise is like nesting, as it were, in the very Divine Will of
God. Looking at the self leads nowhere but living in praise of

God leads to divine union with Him. So in Thess 5:16 – 19, we

read, “rejoice in the Lord always.... In everything give thanks.
This is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”

The old enemy, Satan, can do nothing to us without God in His

profound wisdom seeing the way through. God only does so if,
even on the long-term, it can achieve eternal results. See for

example in the case of Jesus, His betrayal by Judas, Peter’s

denial, the animosity of the Chief priests and Pharisees and a
dark night of suffering both interior and exterior beyond all dark

nights. Salvation for all lay within the confines of the pain. Every

and all individual sins were to be atoned for. We must
remember too, the parable of the wheat and the weeds – “an

enemy has done this. Leave them grow together until the

harvest, then gather the weeds to be burnt and the crop into my
barn.” Joy and salvation come out of finding God in the pain.

10