“Praise is the power of Heaven Praise is the power of Heaven Praise is the power that opens the door To the King, the King of Kings.” Author Unknown
Years ago my husband and I thought we were living a nightmare that we might never wake up from. To some, it might seem a small affair, but to us, it caused great stress and affected almost every area of our everyday lives.
We had gritty sand in our water. It came out of every water nozzle in the house. The kitchen sink, the shower, even the toilets. So when we tried to take a shower, instead of a relaxing, pleasant, hot, steamy shower, it was more like being sandblasted while in the nude.
Since we do not have a well or a spring, our water supply comes from the town. We called them multiple times to come and check our plumbing and each time they couldn’t locate the source of our (literally) dirty, irritating, problem.
At any given time you could remove the filter from any faucet in the house and expect to see at least 1/8th cup (and sometimes more) of large-grained sand fall out. When turning on a faucet the sand quickly gathered in the nozzle’s filtering screen and soon blocked any water at all from being able to flow. This nightmare lasted months.
Being believers, we prayed fervently for God to show us what was causing this. We cried out to him month after month and we continued to thank and praise him.
It wasn’t until we heard a sermon about giving thanks to God that our situation changed. The minister focused on two particular scripture verses., 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and Ephesians 5:20. My husband and I were very familiar with the Thessalonians scripture. Since being born again we had always been taught to give thanks from within the midst of our battles. But, having our attention steered to and focused on Ephesians 5:20, well that was a new and unheard-of experience. Giving thanks for all things. Whaaat?! You mean God expects us to thank him for this calamity?
Yes. Yes, he does.
Not only were we not accustomed to doing such an illogical thing, but we also were not very happy about being expected to. This just didn’t make any sense at all.
But desperate times call for desperate measures.
So in the car, on our way home after the church meeting, we determined to thank the Lord for our circumstances. Against our better judgment, we committed ourselves to perform this outlandish act of faith, We thanked him for the sand. We thanked him for the hassle it caused us. We thanked him for the frustration. We thanked him for the plumbing bills. And we even thanked him that he hadn’t yet shown us a solution to our horrendous, pressing problem. We decided to put God to the test and we thanked him for everything about that horrific situation that we could think of. Like the three little pigs who said, “wee wee wee” all the way home, we said thank you all the way.
The very next morning we called the town again. They came right over. Only this time was different. Within minutes our solution was revealed. It was discovered that our hot water tank was half full of sediment! The tank was old and had been deteriorating inside. The sediment back-flowed into all the faucets. Within a few hours, we had purchased and installed a new hot water tank, flushed the pipes, and were singing Hallelujah.
No more sandblasting for us!
In our Christian walk, it is so important not to do “what seems right in our own eyes”. The bible says “we walk by faith, not by sight.” It is imperative that we hear God’s voice and obey. There is an important reason why Jesus prayed, “not my will, but Thine be done.” We must not make a move based on what we feel, but rather on what we know to be truth, harvested straight from God’s word. We, like Paul advised Timothy, need to “strengthen our resolve.” The dictionary describes it like this: “making a decision.” “purposefulness”, “commitment”, “determination”, “firmness”, and “decidedness”.
As I look back to the paragraphs above, I see that my husband and I used some of these very principles to conquer a giant in our land.
We know that it is by thanksgiving and praise that we enter his gates and his courts. (Psalm 100:4)
Thanksgiving and Praise are God-given tools for us to use so that we may approach him. There is no other way to enter.
It is my hope that God’s people would be so full of his Holy Spirit that praise and thanksgiving would be our automatic response to any decision or battle that we face.
