“It Could Have Been Me” – Praising God in Times of Trouble – Purity 1649
Purity 1649 05/03/2025 Purity 1649 Audio Podcast
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Good morning,
Today’s photo of a riverside gathering as the sun illuminates wispy clouds in a stunning celestial delight comes to us from an unknow FB friend who shared this scene on social media back on May 20th, 2022. If this memory is yours, let us know and we will photo-credit you on the blog after the fact.
Well, it’s Saturday and although I have to work today it is my prayer that all who hear or read this message will gather with family or friends over the weekend to enjoy the gift of life that God has given us, the gift that is best enjoyed in the company of others. When I look at today’s photo I can’t help but remember good times with friends in the past and I encourage us all to be intentional about having good times in the present.
The “good days” don’t necessarily have to be the “good old days” and relegated to the past. In fact, with the hard lessons of the past behind us we should probably rejoice all the more. We may miss the thrills of our youth but if your past was anything like mine, you should thank the Lord that you are still alive.
My youth was filled with tumultuous times and risky behavior and yesterday while driving to work and praising the Lord I was hit with a revelation of others who are no longer with us, who have died from accidents, disease, suicide, and overdose, and I was humbled by the thought “It could have been me.” I could be dead just like any one of the countless people whose memories haunted me. It could have been me, for real. And when the revelation hit me, although the fates of those who have died were for me were sad, I praised the Lord. I thanked God for being alive and for being free from the darkness of my past that so easily could have led to my destruction. Although I lived like a fool and easily could have died as a result of foolish choices, I was kept alive until I found my destiny in Christ.
Despite my failures, tragedies, and struggles, the Lord has given me a life and a purpose that gives me continual joy and I was greatly humbled when I thought about the many people I knew who are no longer with us, who, as far as I know, never knew the truth about Jesus, and who very likely may be in hell.
This world broken by sin is a tough place to find happiness and when we don’t know the Lord we look for love and happiness in all the wrong places. Through the struggle of living and the tragedies we witness, the enemy invites us to turn from God and to find happiness in the things of this earth and to stay locked in the our reactive emotions of anger, fear, anxiety, and depression, leading us closer to destruction. The enemy can blind us and distract us from what will satisfy our souls.
But if we resist the devil, submit to God, we will discover what true joy and happiness is. Instead of lamenting about the world’s troubles, we will be able to see the good in life and how God has blessed us all and this revelation will cause us to praise Him.
Speaking of this world and praising the Lord, the In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley devotion for today talks about the counterintuitive spiritual practice of praising the Lord in times of trouble, and I am sharing it on the blog today because I know that this wisdom that Christians need to grab ahold of and practice. Dr. Charles Stanley writes:
“Troubled? Try Praise!
Through praise, we escape the oppressive emotions that often accompany hardship.
Hardship is often accompanied by negative emotions such as fear, frustration, despair, and doubt. People ruled by these feelings are more likely to make poor choices. So it’s important to decide now to respond to adversity as the psalmist did—with a heart of praise.
Even in the darkest hours, worship fills the heart with joy and the mind with peace. It also enlarges our vision so we begin to discern how the Lord is at work in the world, perhaps in ways we haven’t noticed before. We see what He’s doing in our life and detect areas where obedience is required.
Our tendency is to plot a course through a situation toward the easiest solution. But believers who handle things on their own do not mature in their faith. They miss out on the blessings of following the Lord’s plan. Stopping to praise Him protects us and directs us to the right path—namely, the way of God’s will. Moving forward in faith can be frightening. However, we can confidently take a risk, knowing our omniscient, omnipotent God has His children’s best interest in mind (Jeremiah 29:11).
It’s hard to despair while honoring God. We can dispel doubt by recalling His past faithfulness to us and ease frustration by committing our future to Him. Praise is not the obvious reaction to hardship, but it is the wisest response.” – Charles Stanley
Amen. When Job, lost everything He worshiped the Lord. Who does that?
The man who knows God, that’s who.
The idea of responding to hardship with praise is completely counterintuitive to what our emotions and the rest of the world would encourage us to do but it is the thing that will anchor us in truth and give us the hope and power to persevere and overcome hard times.
I had a long stretch of grief and trials in my past where all was lost and the hope of a new life was but a distant and uncertain dream. But because I knew the goodness of God from His presence and help in my past, instead of lamenting over all that was lost, I chose to draw close to Him, to lean on His strength and love, and I praised Him continually.
To experience joy in the midst of grief and trials doesn’t sound possible, but I’m here to testify that, with God, it is.
Praising the Lord in times of trouble is NOT our natural response. So, we should make praise a regular part of our faith walk, so when the dark days come praise won’t be such a strange thing to do, because not only is God worthy of praise, but with practice we become a person of praise.
To praise the Lord is to come before God to acknowledge the truth about who He is and to express our love for God. God appreciates our praise. When we give Him praise, His love for us causes Him to bless us with hope, peace, and joy.
So, bless the Lord with praise and be blessed by Him, now and in times of trouble.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/.
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.
(While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling By John G. Kruis on Amazon )
This morning’s meditation verse comes from the section on Marriage, Husband/Wife Relationships.
Ephesians 6:4 (ESV) Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Today’s verse falls under the ninth point of our counseling reference guide resource section on Marriage, Husband/Wife Relationships.
9. The husband and father is primarily responsible for training the children.
Today’s Bible verses instruct fathers to train their children in the instruction of the Lord and to not provoke them into anger.
OOF, this is Biblical wisdom and sometimes it hurts to hear it because we know that we have failed to practice it in our lives and are reaping the bad fruit for our disobedience, and that bad fruit has hurt and is hurting those who are dearest to us in our hearts.
I have provoked my children to anger. I have not trained them in the instruction of the Lord and I have felt the pain for not doing so and I am still feeling the pain of the consequences for my failure today.
While I am proud of the fact that my children were not as morally depraved as I was in my youth, and I did bring them to church every week up until the time they were able to drive, I can’t say that I trained them in the way they should go…
Although I guess you could say I tried, when I gave them the freedom to decide whether or not to go to church on their own, they both decided not to. So, there is no way I can say that I trained them correctly because if I did they would be actively walking with the Lord in their adulthood but they aren’t.
I didn’t adequately teach the lessons I thought I was teaching, but while I could beat myself up over this, as I am sure many prodigal parents do, I also know that their decision to follow Jesus is not up to me. We all must individually make that choice and while I can’t say I was successful in passing on my faith to my children, at least not in any way that bears evidence, I know that I tried and that’s all we can do. We do what we can and leave the rest up to the Lord.
But with that said, fathers and mothers out there, do what you can to discipline and train up your children in the way of the Lord, because the Bible commands it sure, but also because if your efforts of successful, you know unbound less peace and joy.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from “Day by Day Along the Way” By Jay E. Adams.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Adams’ books for your own private study and to support the late author’s work. This resource is available online for less than $20 at many sites.
Day 148
To what then shall I compare the people of this generation? – Luke 7:31
Jesus set forth the comparison of the unrepentant Jews with truculent children who in their play are never satisfied. They do one thing for a time and it’s not satisfactory; then the opposite, and it isn’t either. John came as an aesthetic, neither eating nor drinking; Jesus came as a normal person doing both. Neither satisfied the Israelites of that generation. They charged John with having a demon, and Jesus with being a glutton and winebibber. Neither man was, as a whole, accepted (though there were some who did believe). That generation (about which Jesus said much since it was slated for destruction) as a whole was either indifferent or, as here, opposed to the truth. They opposed both John and Jesus because what they preached exposed their sin and challenged their lifestyles. Is there a tendency in you also to oppose teaching about sin and repentance?[1]
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[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 156.
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