Category: thanksgiving

Look straight up and praise

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I’m still delving deep into Amy Carmichael’s commentaries on the psalms.  I can’t help but share the precious tidbits I keep finding.  Here are her comments on that transition we find in the psalms from weeping to praise, that encouragement to look straight up and praise God with a song (when we least feel like it . . .):

“I have been noticing how in the Psalms every experience of distress turns to a straight look-up, and praise.  I had not noticed till recently that the Psalm of the weaned child (Ps 131) ends like that: ‘O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and for evermore.’ And today I read Ps 69, and there again I found the look-up that ends in praise.  Kay translates v. 10, ‘I wept soul-tears’, and that is just what it is like at times, when all we have done to help another soul seems to end in failure.  Even so, ‘I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving’ (v. 30).

 “Surely this emphasis on praise in the Psalms is because to turn from discouraging things and look up with a song in one’s heart is the only sure way of continuance.  We sink down into what David calls mire, slime, deep waters, if we do not quickly look up, and turning our back on the discouraging, set our faces again toward the sunrising.

“Perhaps that is what v. 32 of that Psalm means, ‘You who seek God, let your hearts revive.’

“I found all this very reviving.  It led straight to ‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength’ [Is 40.31], and ‘Let them that love Him be as the sun when he rises in his might’[Jgs 5.31].” (Edges, p.159)

“I will bless you, even if the car won’t start . . .”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A week ago I gave a talk at Witnesses to Hope, and part of what I spoke about was the importance of thanking the Lord in all circumstances.  This past weekend one of the women who had attended that night, passed on to me a prayer that she found in the September issue of The Word Among Us.  Part of it goes like this:

Father, I choose today to go through my day blessing you, whether my circumstances are comfortable to me or not.  I will bless you, even if the car won’t start or the kids’ commotion won’t stop.  I will bless you in rain and in drought, in hot or cold, in feast or famine.  I will bless you because you have rescued me from sin.  I lift up your holy name and exalt your goodness because you are holy and righteous.

I will bless you, Father, when gas prices rise, and when my income fails.  I will proclaim that you are good and you hold  all things in the palm of your hand.  When insects swarm, when crops fail, when stock markets falter, even when your favor seems to flee my life, still I will bless you.  You are mysterious in your ways, yet compassionate in your wisdom.  I will trust you, Lord, and bless you, God most high.

You can read (pray) the entire prayer here.

In the land of my captivity

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I will give him thanks in the land of my captivity. (Tobit 13.6)

I have been pondering this verse all morning, thinking about how applicable it is to us all who are living in the land of our captivity.  How often do I grumble rather than give thanks?  Tobit goes on to say “I will give him thanks in the land of my captivity and I show his power and majesty to a nation of sinners.”  What a simple but powerful witness we would each be if we could just develop more of an attitude of thanksgiving and trust in the land of our captivity.  Lord, teach us how to do this.  Prompt us by your Holy Spirit to give thanks to you in all circumstances.