Choose

 After my father-in-law passed on, we found journals he had kept.  Even though there had to have been truly miserable days, he ended each day's record with this phrase:  "It was a good day."

Yesterday was my late husband's birthday and these anniversaries of important days are opportunities to be reminded of grief and loss, to have "blue" days and feel sorry for ourselves.  But yesterday was a lovely day with lots of sunshine, lovely temperatures, contact with good people, lots of blessings.  I was reminded of previous birthdays and was thankful for so many good years together.

It is always our choice:  do we give in to natural attitudes of sadness and self-pity, or do we choose to see our blessings and walk in gratitude?

When Satan came to Adam and Eve to tempt them, he certainly did not point out that there were hundreds of trees they were free to eat from.  He had to draw their focus to the one and only tree that was forbidden.  They were in paradise, where everything was perfect but they allowed themselves to be led to believe that they were missing out on something.  If they had answered the talking snake with glowing reports of how wonderful their life was, there would have been no giving in to the temptation.

My small group co-teacher had a lesson not long ago on Romans 1 where she pointed out that the slide into "all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; (being) full of envy, murder, strife, deceit...gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, proud, boastful, inventors of evil things, and disobedient toward parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, calloused and unmerciful..." (verses29-31) all started with not glorifying God nor giving thanks to Him (verse 21).  

Satan hates it when we praise God.  He wanted the position of being on God's throne.  His boast was "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit also on the mount of the congregation in the recesses of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:13, 14).  He really wanted even Jesus to worship him (Matthew 4:8,9).  

So when we glorify and praise God for all the blessings we do have, we rub the devil's nose in his own messes.  Psalm 8:2:  "Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength because of Your enemies, to silence the enemy and the avenger."  When Jesus quoted part of this verse, He changed the words, not to misquote nor because He didn't remember how it was written, but in order to add commentary.  He said, "Out of the mouths of children and infants You have perfected praise" (Matthew 21:16).  So, in combining the two verses, we can see that praise is connected to our strength and thereby we can silence the enemy and the avenger!  How worthwhile then to choose praise!  Nehemiah said, "The joy of the Lord is your strength."  (8:10)

Some of my new favourite verses are Psalm 92:1, 2:  "It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises unto Your name, O Most High; to declare forth Your lovingkindness in the morning and Your faithfulness in the night..."

So let's choose to praise and be thankful, in order to confound the devil and silence his voice, to protect ourselves from sliding into ungodliness, and to strengthen ourselves.  Of course, at the same time, we are pleasing God and that is always a good thing.