Defensive Praise

There is a program on television, “In the Eye of the Storm” that shows the unprecedented power of Mother Nature’s fury.  They play video clips from individuals that recorded actual moments on their phones when they were literally caught during tornadoes touching down and while experiencing, firsthand, hurricanes as they ripped through their neighborhoods and towns where they lived and shopped.  The power of wind and the aftermath of destruction can boggle the mind.

When death was eminent and the storm was tearing off roofs of homes with people inside, turning cars over with people in them, and houses collapsing around families inside, I heard screams of terror on the videos from people that were panic stricken crying out to God for help and invoking the name of Jesus to save them from the horror they were facing.  They, for sure, knew Who to call on in their time of desperation.

I’ve heard that even professing atheists will call out to God when danger or death threatens them.  There is no doubt in my mind when push comes to shove, we all know in Whom our hope lies.  Salvation is in no other person, place, or thing other than Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. 

When we cast our feelings of hopelessness upon the Lord, it’s the dawn of a new day with hope on the horizon.  I believe that Christians and non-Christians alike call out to the God of miracles in every bad situation when hope is fading and answers evade questions.

The following is my synopsis relating to personal accounts of people I’ve met through the years of how they reacted when troubling times came their way.  I’ve observed attitudes and facial countenances change in an instant, while unbelief and sometimes fear filled their faces when they found themselves in a whirlpool of turmoil that originated from a brewing storm of calamity that was bringing on a state of confusion.

When wave after wave of stress, anxiety, and moments of an overwhelming sense of panic set in, most always the ‘why’ question surfaced.  Now that I think about it, I may be seeing my own reflection of awareness and spiritual growth in the mirror of “teachable moments” as the Holy Spirit taught me, early on in my Christian walk with Jesus, to cast all my cares upon Him, because He cared for me in all situations.

My overview of people going through hardships is what the title of this writing encompasses—Defensive Praise.  I will try to convey how some of these acquaintances reacted to hardships and how they handled uncanny dilemmas they were facing.

I believe a defensive stance was the normal reaction that rose up first to deflect any aggressive action or bad situation that was upon them, whether spiritual, mental, or physical needs.  I interpreted their reactions as the fight or flight syndrome that was kicking in.

I suppose people, for the most part, are prone to become very defensive at the onslaught of bad things that are happening to themselves or their loved ones.  As they stood in this defensive mode, I’ve seen individuals revert to an offensive stance against incoming difficulties of which they didn’t understand nor had control over.

Secondly, a few of them established a hard-shell attitude rather than putting on the whole armor of God like the Bible tells us to do.  While in a defensive/offensive state of mind, while questioning, “What can I do now?” it seemed they took on a position of, “Leave me alone!” while keeping God at arm length in the beginning when everything was coming at them.

I sensed a hardness of spirit creeping inside them for fear of what they were up against.  They had a reflex response from negativism, because the challenges took them off guard and it was difficult to get their mind around what was happening.

Their first impulse was not to praise God during the on-slot of the unknowns  They reacted defensively and sometimes expressed angry demonstrations of rebellion, because of the hurt they were enduring.

The preceding reactions were not always the case, there were certainly exceptions, depending on the personality of each person affected.  In my experience, it appeared to me that shortly after the initial impact and shocking reality of things was evaluated, most of those under attack experienced ‘defensive praise’ that began to exude from individuals that believed in a higher power.

When they realized it wasn’t God who was bringing the problem but Satan or the results of bad decisions on their part, attitudes changed.  The emotions they were caught up in must have required a cooling off period to understand and grasp the gravity of what was happening.  It took time to refocus their loyalty and trust in Jehovah God, the One Who cares.

These people concluded in their minds that there was no one that had the power to bring about positive changes except Almighty God.  I’m sure I speak for most of us when I say, total submission to God takes faith, because we are prone to work things out on our own, but God teaches us that when facing desperate times, desperate measures must be initiated to allow hope to surface from within a person through prayer and praising Him.

We know there is only One true power Who can change things from bad to good; we need only to remember this the moment trials flair up.  We can cry out to God, in confidence, for miracles to manifest themselves just like the people that cried out for help when they were caught in tornadoes and hurricanes.  God protected them from harm.

Though it is hard to relinquish our will to God’s will and trust His sovereignty at times, the bottom line is this: in our ‘God mind’, as I call it, which is the place where the knowledge of God’s omnipotent power resides, this mindset is separate from the ‘natural thinking mind’. 

We can resolve and carefully conclude that when we unite the infinite, Spiritual realm of God with the finite thinking of oneself, good things happen when we trust the Lord.  I call this unification between the two, “faith.” 

This is the only place where individuals can rise above the woes of uncertainty and having defensive feelings, while stepping into the light of God’s hope and allowing Him to bring us out from under the dark cloud of hopelessness into an attitude of praise—Defensive Praise.

(Jeremiah 29:11), “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope.”

Let’s face it, giving praise in times when hurt and uncertainty are bombarding us is most difficult, but when we stabilize our thinking, with the help of the Holy Spirit, these are the moments that peace overshadows us like a warm, woolen blanket on a cold, winter’s night.  This peace is unexplainable, yet attainable through Christ.

The warmth we feel is freely given by the Holy Spirit, our Comforter Whom Jesus promised would come when He returned to heaven after being crucified and raising from the dead on the third day.  The Comforter speaks peace to our soul when we offer up a sacrifice of praise to God in all things—Defensive Praise.  The Lord inhabits our praises.

(Colossians 3:16), “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

www.wordsfrompapa.blogspot.com

Written by,

Papa Boyd