In the last nine months like King David, you were down, you were sick and you were in danger, but the Lord had lifted you up. He has healed you and kept you alive. Real-time statistics has shown more than 20, 000 people die in Africa every day. There’s been plane crash around, terrorism terrorizes everywhere, market pace is slowing down, economies are dying, the public sector are on strike, those who are not are threatening to, but still you have something to be thankful about. Still we Nigerians are celebrating our 53rd Independence anniversary. Here, in the presence of the Lord, we are dancing, rejoicing and glorifying His name. In Lamentations 3:22-23, “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
No matter what might have happened to you in the last nine months. You might have wept throughout that period but now you must praise Him for your Joy cometh. Psalm 30:5. You might have gone through nights of sorrow, praise Him for your morning of Joy has come. Don’t make a mistake to assume that weeping has come to stay and joy is forever gone. Believe God and His word. Psalm 126:1-5, Isaiah 25:8. He will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it.
I know you have passed through some troubles and tough times. But like David, if you can extol God, a better season is here. Habakkuk 3:17-19.When you rejoice and praise God in your troubles, He will make your feet like hinds’ feet, and you will walk upon high places. God is not so worried about the circumstance of our life but He is concerned with how we respond to it. Job 1:21, 2 Kings 4:20-26, 35-36. If you can respond with worship and praise, God has all the power to change your situation for better. When trouble comes, the devil tries to get us to look at our flesh and give up. But God tries to get us to look at Him and praise up. Job 2:9-10. He has all power in His hand. He sees us now and has brought a better second half of the year. Provided you can trust, obey and praise Him you will laugh last. Job 13:15. “Though he slays me, yet will I trust in Him, but I will maintain mine own ways before Him” Job 23:10. “But he knoweth the way that I take; when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” Job 42:10. “And the LORD turned the captivity of job, when he prayed for his friends; also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.”