Blog

January 24, 2019

Opportunities for Praise

By Pastor Tony McQueer

I recently wrote a Facebook post that reflected on the New Year. I just finished reading that post and had to ask myself if I really meant what I wrote.

In my post I wrote:

I enter into this New Year with no false hope but a hope everlasting, for God is good.

I will praise Him in the good times and in the bad times. I don’t know what lies ahead for 2019, but I believe that God’s best lies ahead for me and my household (Joshua 24:15).

About 6 hours later, the main water line to our house broke and flooded our home. What a great way to start the New Year! We are still living in total chaos.

So, I stop and reflect: Did I mean what I wrote? Will I praise God in the good times and the bad times? Well, the answer is: I must. I have no other choice. I don’t consider our house flooding a good thing, of course, but I found myself laughing. Really, I thought, as we were using the shop vac to suck up all the water at midnight. What a great way to start the New Year. Will I praise God? Not for the flood, of course, but for the many opportunities that will now take place because of the flood.

And yes, the “many opportunities” have been pouring in! With them come reminders of God’s grace. We were so consumed with cleaning things up, tearing things out, and putting things into tubs that I lost all track of time. Life does go on, even when bad things happen. The night of the flood I got very little sleep. I still had to get up early the next morning to go to work. I still had everything my busy life required of me and now had to somehow deal with the flood. Then it happened. The very first opportunity but this opportunity was not mine.

A call from a friend: “Hey I heard you’re having problems, how can I help?” I never thought the flood that happened to my family might actually be someone else’s opportunity!

A couple more days go by and there seems to be no end in sight. I’m very tired. My entire family has been working hard to get things into some kind of order. Frankly, I was pretty burned out. I came home that night knowing I have to continue to do more stuff and my wife Trish says, “Hey, look what Darla dropped off.”

Laid before me was a full course meal. I mean chicken, meatloaf, potatoes and gravy, the list goes on. Seriously, things were so messed up we really had not eaten a real meal in several days. Our flood gave an opportunity for someone else to praise God and minister to my family.

Now I am not saying we all need to have floods in our life just to give opportunities for others to praise God. What I am saying is floods will happen in our life whether we want them to or not.

I’ve shared two seemingly small things that have happened as a result of a flood in my family’s life (there are now dozens of things as of today). In reality these things are not small at all but opportunities to praise God together, not for the floods in our life but for the love of God others express and we can express to each other when bad things happen.

I continue to pray that God will bless you and minister to you as you and your family seek to give Him praise!

“As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” 1 Peter 4:10-11 (NKJV)