Praise, pray, or panic?

I swing wildly between gratitude and frustration.

I know I’m supposed to be grateful. I know it’s good for me. I know God says in EVERYTHING we should praise him. In fact the word “PRAISE” appears more than 250 times in the bible. Psalm 150 is my favorite – here’s the bible.com list so you can choose yours.

But sometimes in that fraction of a second when the Holy Spirit gives me a chance to PRAISE OR PRAY I instead resort to PANIC. Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I mean. You do. You just don’t yet recognize it as panic. Neither did I. Until I got slapped in the face by this little bit of wisdom from Oswald Chambers the other day. He says, “The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of my lack of personal spiritual experience.”

What? First I was kind of offended. Then I was just a little angry. Then as I read it again and again I wondered, is this really me?

It IS me. I like to run around looking busy because then I don’t have to face up to what’s really wrong. I don’t have to make any plans to actually do something about it. Ouch. It hurts to say it. But I know God can only heal me to the extent at which I’ll admit I’m broken.

I’m super grateful for Pastor Steven Furtick’s message this weekend – “Making Friends with Frustration.” It’s online now – The fact that Elevation’s Sunday sermon is online by Monday is one of the things that makes Mondays so great, don’t you think?