More Insight

Insight

(Dragonfly Ministries President, Mary Hamrick)

September 2002

In August, I traveled to Florida to sit with my dad during his hospital stay.  We talked of few things because his illness was at extreme levels, but the one subject we did speak of was the Lord.  One of the few things dad told me during my visit was, “Praise God every day, at least once a day.”  As dad’s body lay in pain in the hospital bed, he would open his eyes and whisper, “Praise God”, and then resume resting.  Those words spoke more to my heart than anything else that took place during those days with him.  I marveled that he could lie in bed with so much sickness and pain coursing through his body, and still Praise the Lord. 

I’ve always heard that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they behave in times of trouble, confusion, or despair, and I’ve always believed that to be true.  During those times, our guards are down and we no longer try to be the person we are expected to be; but we are just the people that we are and that’s it … we’re stripped down to the bare person without the outer layer of pretension.  How we hold up during those times is solely based on our true character.

God’s Word teaches us that if we allow Him to grow us, we will become Christ-like; that means ‘like Christ’.  Our personality and character will reveal what is truly in our hearts, and the way we live today will prepare us for that time when our true character is revealed, whether through hardship, sickness or even death.   If we allow God to work in us, He will replace our sinful actions with the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  When we live by the Spirit of God, we will keep in step with the Spirit.  In Colossians 3:12, we are taught to “clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” That means to always practice those characteristics, and they will become a way of life for us and will be the traits that are present during our troublesome times.  And during those times, others will see Christ in us – in our reactions and behaviors and through our faith.

I meditated on dad’s words, “Praise God every day, at least once a day.”  When we give praise to God, we take our eyes off of our problems and place our focus on Him, if just for one fleeting moment.  And eventually, if we keep praising God every day, at least once a day, we will develop the habit of praising Him, and before long, we will begin to praise Him without even thinking about it.

You know, I’ve also heard that ‘you are what you eat’.  That phrase applies to our spiritual lives as well.  When we feed our hearts and minds with spiritual food (the Word of God), our lives begin to take on Christ-like qualities – sometimes without our even knowing it – because in digesting the spiritual food, our focus changes from self to our Heavenly Father.  And then we begin to change.  We may not even notice the gradual change until one day we are faced with difficulties and we handle the situation differently than we ever dreamed.  And we feel the supernatural power – the power of God – holding us up and steadying us, comforting us and giving us peace; and we just Praise God, because that is what we have learned to do through every situation.

Let today begin a new day of praise for you.  Remember …

Mary H.