Last week, while I was looking for a specific book in my
library, my eyes fell on the title: All
In God’s Time. When I glanced at the author and saw it was Iverna Tompkins,
I immediately pulled the book from the shelf. She has spoken into my life in
powerful ways many times through her conference ministry and other books she
has authored.
Her subtitle for the book is “What to Do When You’re Waiting
for God to Tell You What to Do” (Orlando FL: Creation House, 1996). Oh my! I
devoured the book and found my current questions regarding what I should be
doing in several areas of my life answered in very practical terms.
I especially related to the chapter called “The Perspective
of Praise”. Having just spent over a year and a half lying flat on my back many
hours a day, looking up, as I recuperated from a back injury, my cry had become,
“Lord, there is a lifting up”. I managed to sit long enough each day,
painfully, to complete my professional writing assignments and teach my private
piano students, clean house, etc.
But during those months of lying on my back waiting on God,
He enlarged my capacity to hear His voice and my heart to desire to do His will
alone. It was during that time
that He gave me the dream of the Airbus I “owned” as a parable of my life in
Christ, in which I soared into the heavenlies, taking people with me through
prayer, praise, and showing them the love of God in many ways (see I dreamed a
parable of my life in Christ.
).
So when Iverna Tompkins described the power of praise in a
believer’s life “as though you’ve
taken a ride in God’s 747 and soared up to thirty-five thousand feet”, I felt
myself gasp and then grin. She continued: “Everything is so minute from that
perspective…Sometimes we need to climb up there and look back down at our
troubles to say, ‘God forgive me; how dumb it was to get all worked up over
those specks!’” Then she quoted one of the psalms I had read over and over that
gave me hope of experiencing a “lifting up”:
“He [God] brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of
the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he
hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God…Blessed is that man
that maketh the Lord his trust” (Ps. 40:2-4).
Since my physical ordeal, which the Holy Spirit used to
invade my mind and heart with His presence, I do have a new song and laughter
in my mouth as well as a new focus for reaching out to hurting people and helping
them soar into the presence of God in Christ Jesus. The idea that praise
propels us into the presence of God is a wonderful picture of God’s purpose for
us to fill our lives with praise and worship. In the hard times, the fearful, painful
experiences of life – there is a lifting up through praise. Thank God for His
continual “teaching” of fundamental truths as we face new challenges in our
walk with God.
Blessings for the journey – IN CHRIST.
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