It can be difficult to give The LORD praise when passing through difficult seasons. Trials and tribulations have a way of skewing how blessed we really are because it tends to cause us to focus on what is going wrong and how helpless we can feel at the time. Whether going through an illness or watching someone you love endure hard times and seemingly impossible odds, we must find time to give our Heavenly Father praise because this is going to be key to our successful completion of the season. It may not be easy to do this all the time, and our Father knows this. This is why it is called a sacrifice of praise in certain places in our Bibles. Can you imagine Abraham giving praise on his way to sacrificing his only son to Yahweh? Can you imagine Hannah going to offer praises and sacrifices each year as she traveled with her husband but had no children like her adversary Peninnah? Giving praise to the Lord cannot be contingent on circumstances or emotions, or we may never be able to off
The last three weeks have been unforgettable. Someone very close to my family had to have a below the calf leg amputation to save their life. The doctor explained that in less than 2 days, they would have surely been dead due to the rate at which the flesh-eating bacteria was spreading. Sepsis had set in unless GOD had shown mercy, this may have very well been a post about their death. But GOD showed mercy and made it possible for them to receive care from a specialist within the field (who was the only specialist within a 4-5 state radius), and though they lost a limb, they will live. I am grateful. Interesting enough, this same person had visited my son and I just two weeks prior and visited our church. I asked if they were saved, and jokingly they responded that they were saved on Sundays, but don't let Jesus come Monday-Saturday. I shook my head not knowing what would happen just just two weeks. Then, this past Sunday my pastor, Dr. Rod Parsley gave a sermon that certainly ra