Desert Declaration

“But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for He has been good to me."--Psalm 13:5-6

Life is full of Philippians 3:1 moments: "It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you." Here's one now:

Some days, it takes everything within you to unseal your lips and lift up the arms that droop. But when we do, something unspeakable and unexplainable happens. Problems and trials may not instantly disappear, but as we choose to fight through the stuff that’s yelling bad and scary things in our brain and choose instead to speak, to sing, to remind our souls of what and Who alone is True, the unfailing love of God begins to move within...

Hope is stirred.

Faith arises once more.

A spring of refreshing emerges in the midst of the desert.

Peace begins to enthrone itself again on our hearts (maybe just a flicker of a flame at first, but at least no longer a wick).

This isn’t hypocrisy or manipulation. We’ve got the psalmists as our defense on this one. Their determination to fix their eyes heavenward in praise was often not due to happy-happy-joy-joy circumstances but while surrounded by tons of chaos and life pressing in on all sides. Against all odds, they trusted.

And down through the ages, they remind us: "Resolute praise wins. Every time. Because God's Truth wins. Every time."

“Dost thou not know that thy God loves thee in the midst of all this? Thou shalt yet, amidst the splendors of eternity, forget the trials of time, or only remember them to bless the God who led thee through them, and wrought thy last good by them. Come, sing in the midst of tribulation. Rejoice even while passing through the furnace. Make the wilderness to blossom like the rose! Cause the desert to ring with thine exulting joys, for these light afflictions will soon be over and then 'forever with the Lord,' thy bliss shall never wane.” –Charles Spurgeon