Praise God for the glorious dawn of His story! He is separate from and greater than Creation, yet He chose to humble Himself and become part of it when He took on the form of a man. And as Man, the One Who is greater than Creation submitted Himself to it – to the heat of the day, the cold of the night, the storms on the sea. On occasion, His deity was revealed when He calmed the sea or cleansed the leper or gave sight to the blind or raised the dead, but for the most part of thirty-three years, He lived in subjection to the very things He had created. Why? So that you and I might have the power, through faith in Him, to overcome the empty, broken, sinful, bitter, meaningless, lonely, helpless, fearful, weak, religious, and hopeless world of which we are a part.
Eve became dissatisfied with God’s will when Satan was able to focus her attention on the one thing God had said she could not have – the forbidden fruit. The temptation that confronted Eve intensified because she tolerated it by actually talking to the Serpent about it.
But the basic problem was not what she said; it was that she said anything at all! As she conversed with the Serpent she got into deeper trouble, because he responded, “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4, NIV). That was an absolute, deliberate contradiction of what God did say! Eve was confronted with Satan’s word against God’s Word. Who would she choose to believe?
Jesus said we are to cut temptation out of our lives by severing ourselves from whatever is causing us to be tempted. (Matt. 5:29-30) The apostle Paul said we should run from it. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we are to talk about it! Unless we do our talking with the Lord. So . . . cut it out! And pray while you run from temptation!
King David knew that the secret of victory over adversity was a conscious choice to praise God. Again and again, as he cries out to God in prayer, we hear his choice to praise: “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? . . . Look on me and answer, O Lord my God. . . . But I will trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me” (Ps. 13:2-6, NIV). David, hounded by Saul and living as a fugitive for years in a nation where he was the national hero as well as the anointed king, exercised his will to praise God even when he just didn’t feel like it.
Praise is the switch that turns on the light of joy in our lives even when it’s “dark” outside. And the resulting “light” causes others to see the glory of God in our lives.
