What do you wake up to? The alarm disturbing the semblance of sleep you were enjoying? The singing birds outside your window as you take your time stretching and yawning to embrace the new day?
For slow starters who perhaps require a hot caffeine packed beverage to get the engines running, I offer this stimulating pick me up which is free from those dangers in that cuppa.
I am aware that the sentiments in the song are not always easy to access when you’re busy getting sleep out of your head, or once having got it out you realise the potential perils of the hours ahead or the pitfalls of the hours before. The happy-clappy mentality is not what’s being encouraged here if it doesn’t match your reality. However, the encouragement by Paul to Rejoice in the Lord always echoing the Psalmist’s proclamation of having praise continually on the lips is not about the primacy of emotional states and historical events.
Getting it in the head as a matter of priority that God is worth praising and rejoicing in puts the responsibility for the day and life itself right where it belongs from the beginning. Thus in the good and bad, sunshine and rain, healthy times and pain that initial and ongoing commitment of praise prepares us to bounce things back to God. It’s as if we say along with another songwriter whatever the lot, You cause me to say it is well with my soul. My joy is found in You, so You help sort through this pickle, this jam, this issue, this temptation, this quandary, this torment – and trusting You to do that even as my heart aches and my mind breaks from the depths of my being I still offer praise to You.
Of course if your day is going swimmingly, then all the more reason to give credit where it’s due for that and embrace that for what it is. Indeed oh that men would praise His name to the ends of the earth.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 