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I was thinking about praise this morning, specifically about when we give God praise. It is easy to praise Him when everything is going well, when your family is healthy, you have a job, the bills are getting paid and the kids are staying out of trouble. We can easily sing, “God is so good.”

The same is true after a problem has been resolved. After your loved one has been healed from an illness. After you have found a new job. After everything is all better.

It’s easy to praise before anything is going wrong and it’s easy to praise afterwards, but praise from the middle? That’s hard. When we have been struggling through a problem for long enough that we are worn out, but we still don’t have the end in sight, we can start to lose hope. It can feel frustrating that God is still expecting us to praise Him in those circumstances.

Maybe that is why God had the Israelites pick up the stones from the middle of the river. When the Israelites had finally made it through the wilderness, when they were finally in sight of the Promised Land, when all they had left to do was to cross a river, God asked for praise one more time from the middle. He miraculously stopped the river upstream, during flood time no less, to allow His people to once again cross a body of water on dry land. My personal inclination when faced with something difficult, is to rush through it as quickly as possible. Flood waters standing up in a wall a little ways away, I want to run across the riverbed! But God had a different idea. He instructed them to pick up rocks from the middle of the river to set up as a memorial to what He had done for them once they got to the other side, to remind them of what He had done in the difficult middle.

I find God does this in my life as well. Maybe I am not picking up literal rocks, but God does teach me a lot in the middle of hard times that He then expects me to use on the other side as a testimony of His goodness. Because that is another thing, God is always good, no matter how bad things get. He is always with us and He also never leaves us in the middle.

“Come and see what God has done: He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man. He turned the sea into dry land and they passed through the river on foot…we went through fire and through water, yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.” Psalm 66:5-6&12b.

Are you like me, afraid of “missing the boat?” For some reason I have this deep seated fear of missing God’s path or plan for my life. I think that I will be too busy doing laundry or chasing kids to hear that still, small voice that shows me which way to go.

I was sharing this fear with a friend recently and she pointed out that Jonah, in the Bible, literally missed the boat and God still found him and gave him the opportunity to go the way God had planned for him!

This made me laugh, but it also helped me to feel relieved. Of course God is not going to hide His plans that He has for us. Yes, part of His plan is that we do spend time with Him, quietly listening, but He will also make His voice plain to those of us who are truly seeking His way for our lives.

I think another wrong way I think about this concept, and again you might be like me in this, is that I think there is only one set plan or opportunity for my life. When I think like this, I am forgetting the free will that God gave all of us. In reality, I think God usually puts lots of opportunities in front of us and is eager to see which one we will choose.

This is where the relationship part comes in. We get to have a conversation with our Creator about His ideas and plans for our life! When I look at it this way, I get excited and all fear that my ship has sailed disappears completely.

“You have made known to me the paths of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence.” Acts 2:28

“So here I am again, God, right in the middle of a problem, wishing I wasn’t right in the middle of a problem! I am praying You deliver me quickly, in fact, now would be good. This is hard and uncomfortable God, I don’t like it.”

This is how my praying, (whining?) was going this morning, when suddenly I was brought up short by a thought. What if this is right where God wants me? Right here in the messy middle of what looks to me like a Mount Everest size problem. Aagh, really?

The more I thought about it though, the more it lined up with what I know of God. He is far more interested in our spiritual growth than in the outcome of our circumstances, at least as far as the easy, happy endings I always imagine for myself. His goal for us is to make us more like Jesus all the time, using whatever means necessary.

Please don’t misunderstand me, God does not cause bad things in our lives or deliberately lead us into terrible problems. The sin and brokenness in the world can do plenty of that on its own. However, when we inevitably end up facing trials, God uses every little detail to bring us closer to Him.

So even though I am still not excited to be facing the problems I am facing, I feel better knowing that God is going to use them to draw me closer to Him. And even though it is not comfortable, I can be confident that I am right where God wants me and He will show me how to climb the mountain in front of me.

“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to You, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Psalm 61:1-2

The blacksmith chooses a chunk of metal. A baby takes its first cry.

The blacksmith starts to heat the metal and pound on it with his tools. Mama starts to teach, “No, baby, don’t touch the hot stove.”

The metal bends and stretches. The blacksmith’s brow has beads of sweat. Mama is on her knees praying through tears. The child grows some more and learns.

The metal is beginning to take a rough shape, starting to look like something usable. The child is becoming more responsible, more capable.

A few more pounds with a hammer, a smile breaks out on the blacksmith’s face. The piece is really taking shape now. Mama is so proud of the young person her child is becoming.

Now it is time for the rasp. The blacksmith files across the metal with vigor. Will she ever survive the teenage years? Mama prays constantly and leads gently now, a suggestion here, some careful advice there. Life itself is now polishing her child.

The blacksmith is finally satisfied. He takes out his metal stamp and imprints his sign on his work. She can’t believe the years have flown so quickly. Her child is ready to leave. She is so thankful; it is not her stamp on their heart, but the Master Blacksmith’s very own name imprinted there: God.

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

The other night I was driving home from Bible study and ran into, what to me, was a blizzard. Now let me make this clear, I DO NOT drive in the snow! To say I was massively distressed is an understatement.

This storm came with no warning. I had been checking the weather and it said there may be a few flurries. But let me tell you, this was not just a few flurries. Isn’t that the way life is sometimes? Here I was doing something “good,” going to Bible study, it wasn’t as though I were driving home from something “bad.” However, even when we are cruising along, thinking everything is good, these storms can come. I think they take us more by surprise, because most people expect some sort of repercussions if they are doing things they know they shouldn’t, but most of us have this thinking that if we are being good, only good things should happen to us.

The other thing about this snowstorm I was in, was that it happened in a location that it shouldn’t have. I was driving away from where the snow usually is. I kept driving, because there was little choice as it was 9:30 at night. I continued to expect to get out of the storm by the time I hit certain towns, but it just kept snowing. This is the same for the storms of life, sometimes they happen in areas we would never expect. We may think that we have it completely together in a certain area, we are rock solid. Then an unexpected event happens and our world is rocked, instead of rock solid. I also have a tendency to think that storms should only last so long, but like my experience of the other night, some storms seem to go on and on.

One more thing, if you notice, the first thing I stated, is that I do not drive in the snow. Well guess what? That night I did! I also tend to draw lines in the sand, (or snow!) about what kind of storms I will have in my life. In not so many words, but in my heart, I tell God which areas of my life I WILL NOT have problems in. And just like my snowstorm of the other night, guess which areas of my life He allows storms?

The number one thing to know about difficult times though, is that as followers of Christ we are never alone. No matter how difficult it is to see, no matter that we have no idea how long the problem will last, and no matter that we don’t know the outcome, Jesus has promised that He will never leave us, or forsake us, that He will be with us in every storm.

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:20

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Romans 8:35

Why is it that so many of our sayings have to do with looking down? We say he is, “keeping his nose to the grindstone.” We tell our kids, “Keep your head down and focus on your work.” Or another one, “Buckle down and get to work!”

We also describe negative things we say to each other in downward terms such as, “put downs,” or “take downs.” We even use low words to talk about our sad feelings: “feeling low,” or “let down.”

All of these things are the exact opposite of how God describes Himself in the Bible. Isn’t that usually the way it is? The world has one way and God’s way is completely different. In Psalm 3:3 it says that God lifts our heads high. In James 4:10 the Bible tells us that if we humble ourselves before the Lord He will lift us up; again, opposite of what the world says, which is, if we are humble, we will be low and walked on. One of my favorite encouraging chapters in the book of Psalms includes the sentence, “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” (Psalm 40:2)

God doesn’t want us going around with our heads hanging down. He wants to lift us up out of whatever we are going through whether it is shame, rejection, discouragement, or a whole other list of possibilities. He is wanting to gently put His hand under our chins, lift our heads and tell us to look at Him. He wants us to, “find delight in the Almighty and look up to God.” Job 22:26