As I drove to work that morning, my new favorite song blasted through the speakers. It was the end of winter, and the damp air outside kept the windshield misty with rain. Tears streamed down my face as I worshipped God through song.
Just a couple of days before, I had been diagnosed with kidney cancer. Surgery would happen in only a few weeks. A doctor’s visit had changed my life as I knew it. Yet, as the song “Behold the Lamb” played on, my heart was filled with peace, gratitude and thanksgiving.
No, nothing had changed. I still had cancer. We were still trying to figure out how we would manage without my income while I recovered from surgery. We were still trying to help our children cope with the unavoidable fear of losing mommy. And, yes, I had moments when I felt discouraged, puzzled and downright scared.
But in the midst of it all, I found something new: a new song of praise.
But this “new song” was not the beautiful melody on the speakers that day. This “song” was a paradigm shift. For the first time in my life, I understood, deep down in my soul, what praise truly is. And I would never be the same.
It’s easy to praise God when life is beautiful. When we have money, secure relationships and health, we usually find ourselves grinning from ear to ear — praising God is as easy as breathing. But then, there comes a valley — a deep, dark one. And when darkness settles in, we instinctively find it hard to continue our songs of praise.
That is, well, inherent to human nature.
It is indeed hard to praise God when our world is falling apart. This type of praise does not come naturally. Rather, it is a deliberate act of faith. It means we choose to deliberately remove our eyes from our predicaments and focus on the immutability of a loving, faithful God.
A new paradigm
If we can turn our eyes from our ever-changing circumstances and fix them on the unchanging nature of our God, we change our praise paradigm from what God does to who God is. We shift from focusing on what continually changes to the one who never does.
Instead of focusing on unemployment, we fix our eyes on the promises of “Jehovah Jireh” — the Hebrew name for God, the provider. Instead of focusing on cancer, we worship “Jehovah Rapha,” God, our healer.
In other words, instead of our uncertainties, we focus on God’s attributes, which never change and never will. We find these attributes throughout Scriptures:
The all-knowing God — who is keenly aware of what happens to us — nothing escapes his sovereign will. (Job 37:16)
The loving God — who loves us and promises to uphold us all our days. (Isaiah 46:4)
The all-powerful God — the one who spoke the stars into existence is more than able to mend a broken life. He is the God of the impossible. (Genesis 18:14)
The all-present God — who promises to never leave us nor forsake us. (Deuteronomy 31:6)
The sovereign God, who rules all creation, has every circumstance in perfect control. His ways are higher than we can ever comprehend. (Isaiah 40:21-23)
And finally, the holy God — who uses our dark circumstances as purifying fire, thus preparing us for his purposes. (Psalm 66:10)
Indeed, 2012 was a year filled with long, dark valleys. My husband and I often mentioned that we would happily bid the year goodbye when Dec. 31 came. And we certainly did, but strangely as it may seem, today, I view one of the most challenging years of my life with honest gratitude.
All because of a praise paradigm change.
Maybe 2024 was that year for you, and you face this Thanksgiving season with the dreadful sense that there are not many reasons to praise God.
If that is you, I invite you to try this deliberate, blessed exercise: Praise God “in spite of.” Choose Job’s song, whose words, at the height of excruciating loss, echo through the ages as the first example in Scriptures of a faith-filled, however broken hallelujah:
“The Lord gives, and he takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21
Patricia Holbrook is a columnist, author, podcaster and international speaker. Visit her new website at patriciaholbrook.com. For speaking engagements and comments, email patricia@patriciaholbrook.com.
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