Day 5: Midnight praise
You are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance (Psalm 32:7).
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God… (Psalm 42:5, 11).
The heart in its pressure of care or pain cannot well remain silent; it must speak or break. Its natural impulse is to give utterance to its emotion in cries of pain or in fretful complainings and discontented murmurings. It will be a great relief to the overburdened spirit if in time of pain or trial the pent-up feelings can be given some other vent than in expressions of worry or anxiety.
Paul’s words... provide us with the way of escape, for when he says we should take our anxieties to God in prayer, he adds “with thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving is the relief valve for the pressure tank of stress and pain.
It is better always to put pain or grief into melody than into wails. It is better for the heart itself; it is a sweeter relief. There are no wings like the wings of song and praise to bear away life’s burdens...
We remember that our Lord, when he was nailed on the cross, where His sufferings must have been excruciating, instead of a cry of anguish turned the woe of His heart into a prayer of intercession for His murderers. Paul, too, in his prison, his back torn with the scourge and his feet fast in the stocks, gave vent to his great suffering in midnight hymns of praise which rang throughout the prison.
These illustrations suggest a wonderful secret of heart-peace in time of distress, whatever the cause. We must find some outflow for our pent-up emotions; silence is unendurable. We may not complain nor give utterance to feelings of anxiety, but we may turn the bursting tides into the channels of praise and prayer.
~James R. Miller ~ Shall We Worry?
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