Last night I was having one of those nights. This week has already felt like a very long week, with still one more work day to go. My daughter and I got home and did our usual routine (whatever that really means – nothing is usual for us), but add to that, making a cake for her school party. I was already tired and in a so-so mood. I played my go-to songs, but that wasn’t lifting the emotions – or not by much.
I went to do the thing I know would be sure to unwind me – a nice hot shower. I prayed and asked for something different in my YouTube page, sure enough there was a different song ‘overwhelmed’ by Big Daddy Weave. This song had changed my perspective a few months ago. I went somewhere unexpected and my heart had been full by the way God had used me, and ministered to me, and answered a question I’d asked just earlier that day. I had been overwhelmed with God’s love. This song took the focus off me, and placed it on how good God was, and I was overwhelmed by God’s love for me.
Then my daughter came in and asked to listen to a song that had literally just crossed my mind as well – but I hadn’t looked it up. I was so surprised that she asked for it that I asked her why, her simple response, ‘because we haven’t played it in a while’. In a while, means it could have been months since we’d last played it together. But there is no way that she could have known that very song had crossed my mind just moments before, and I knew it was God using her to remind me of what He has told me in the past. That song led to another praise song and then another, and then my so-so mood was lifted, just by taking the focus off me, and turning my eyes to God.
Psalm 105:1-4 states ‘Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.’
Friends, sometimes we won’t feel like praising. Sometimes it will feel like it’s one of the hardest things to do, it’s in these moments we have to extend outside ourselves and look to God, the author and finisher of our faith. We need to ask Him for His strength, especially when we feel like we can’t hold on any more. It’s only through His strength we will be perfected.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for using a four year old. Lord, thank you for all that you do. Help us to praise you, even when we don’t feel like it because it’s only then we will be able to put you into focus and take it away from myself.