Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.
Sing to the LORD a new song;
Sing to the LORD, all you lands;
Sing to the LORD; bless his name. Psalm 96: 1-2a
Our Post is Inspired by The Holy Spirit.
This is the Responsorial Psalm from the optional readings for March 23.
Something I learned from a Protestant radio minister decades ago,
Angels can’t sing!
Well, I can imagine a lot of you are thinking, the Angels at Christmas sang to the shepherds. No, in the majority of the Bibles the Angels Proclaimed the birth of Jesus.
I did find one bible that said they sang, but that was the only one.
What a lot of you are thinking is, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” In reality, they Proclaimed the birth of Jesus.
This responsorial Psalm I think is very relative to all the events that are taking place today.
Question;
Are you proclaiming to those around you all that God is doing in your life right now?
I believe as a society we’re not.
Why would we say this?
Look at who we turn to when the going gets tough?
It’s not God for so many people, it’s a new drug, it’s a new treatment, it’s anything and everything BUT God.
God for so many is a last resort!
So many people don’t believe in the power of prayer!
How sad.
I believe they don’t believe in the power of prayer because few people tell others when their prayers are answered.
This is why thanking God for all God is doing in our lives is so very important, for two reasons:
1. It reminds you of God working in your life, and the more prayers of Thanksgiving that YOU proclaim to yourself thanking God for all God is doing in your life the more you will realize how dependent you really are on God.
This is exactly what satan doesn’t want!
satan wants you to be hooked on the latest fad for a cure to solve a difficulty, you don’t need God and anyways God can’t do what you want.
God doesn’t care, you really are not that important in God’s eye.
Don’t fall for these lies. God knew every hair on your head before you were born.
YOU are WANTED and YOU are LOVED!
The Cross should tell you this!
When you thank God for all that is going on in your life you really start to realize that you are dependent upon God for everything, and once we realize this we start to understand how vulnerable we really are.
2. When we proclaim to others all that God is doing in our lives this reinforces our knowledge that God is active in our lives.
We have to step out of our comfort zone and Proclaim God for who God really is, Our Savior, our Shield, and the only One we really want to involve in our lives when the sledding gets tough.
Actually, the above statement is wrong.
I was in a small faith group decades ago, being eighty-one I can say this, and we talked for an hour and a half about how much time God gets and how much time I, not we, get. At the end of the meeting, we agreed God gets twenty-four-seven, I, not we, get zero.
As I drove home that night I looked up through the windshield and said, “Twenty-four seven, you’ve got to be kidding,” and the answer that came back was, “Twenty-four seven.”
This was one of the many times God has spoken to me.
That next day I started my, now I knew our, quest for twenty-four seven. It’s taken a long time, I am not there yet, I am surprised at how much I have changed, and am filled with Joy that I, we, are trying to attain that goal.
That goal is also telling others about God in my life, and we can do it by words or what is even more powerful by our attitude.
I’m Fantastic!
In this day and age, how many people do you hear saying they are Fantastic?
Not Many!
The world has the same problems for me as it does for you.
Except,
When I live in the “Spirit World,” the world’s problems don’t carry the same weight.
I fully believe God allows all of the difficulties we have, to bring us closer to God!
When we look for a worldly answer to solve stress, for example, anger just rises up even further.
I was talking with our oldest son Mike just before we started typing this blog, and Mike said Fr. John Bohn, Pastor of St. Richards Church, in Jackson Mississippi, told the story at Sunday’s Mass, of a Saint being brought in to feed the Lions celebrating that he would soon be with Jesus.
God working in my life.
If a man can celebrate being fed to the Lions, which will result in him going home to Jesus, surely we can celebrate all the times God has taken care of us during our daily lives.
This is why we believe you have to:
Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.
Sing to the LORD a new song;
Sing to the LORD, all you lands;
Sing to the LORD; bless his name.
Remember Angels can’t sing!
“The nine” We pray you will grow in the Love, Joy, and Peace of the Holy Spirit by growing in Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.
Sidebar:
In 2016 I had a sudden hearing loss. What happened was, I stepped out of the shower and felt I had water in my ears. I tried everything but couldn’t remove the water. Typical of me, I ignored it for a few months, and finally went to the V.A. to get my hearing aids adjusted.
The V.A. is located seventy miles from our condo.
I was asked to see a doctor before I went home. Which I did.
The doctor looked at the chart and said that my hearing loss was due to a brain tumor, BUT it was probably nonmalignant, I would have to get a Ct-scan to determine what was really going on.
I’m not very good with this kind of information, and as I walked out of his office my knees turned to jello, and I still had the drive home.
Notice the timing of what we are going to relate to you next;
Months earlier, I was asked by Msgr. Paul Stefanko if I would take communion to George Pavloff, who was instrumental in starting the prison ministry, at the Cumberland County Jail.
Msgr. Paul also told me that George told him that George was on the “Hallelujah train home.” My ears picked up when I heard this because I had never heard that kind of positive statement by someone dying.
As we said earlier, my knees had turned to jello. Halfway to the car, the Holy Spirit reminded me of George’s words, and we started saying George’s prayer to myself, “I’m on the Hallelujah train home,” and I repeated them three or four times before I arrived at the car.
When I arrived at the car, I was in Peace, my knees and resolve to take all that was going to happen, had changed from fear to Peace.
On the way home I said this powerful prayer a few more times and I actually started to look forward to our next step.
I’m sure many of you are thinking I’m a sandwich short of a picnic.
I had to drive home, and we made it, and yes I was still in Peace when we arrived.
I told Gail, and we decided to wait on the Ct-Scan until after our fifth-anniversary party, and our cruise.
Why?
I didn’t want people looking at me wondering if all was well. I also wanted to celebrate fifty wonderful years with Gail, and who knew what would be involved with the tumor.
As a side note, my brother Jeff died of a brain tumor a few years later, and at his celebration of life party while he was still alive, Jeff told us, “I have done all that I wanted to do, and now I look forward to the next step.”
After we arrived back in Maine, from our cruise, I sent out an email to the family and close friends telling them what was going on in my life and asking for their prayers.
The response I received back from everyone I sent the emails to brought and still does bring tears to my eyes.
I wasn’t alone.
After the cruise, I had the Ct-scan, and with my doctor, we get the results of all tests before the doctor gets them, which I love, because this gives me the information I can use when talking to the doctor.
I debated if I should read the report or wait until the doctor told me.
The Holy Spirit said, “Read the report.”
I read the report and at the bottom, it said, “Loss of hearing was due to old age.”
Yes I, we, celebrated, being old, and especially this good news, and we told everyone the good news and gave credit to God.
We’re telling this story because:
If George hadn’t given praise to God for his upcoming trip, “Riding the Hallelujah train home,”
and
If Msgr. Paul hadn’t told me of George’s prayer,
I am not sure how I would have handled the news, “You have a brain tumor.”
But as you can see God did take care of me, as by the way God always HAS, which is why I also believe God IS taking care of me, and I fully believe God WILL take care of me.
Life is Fantastic!
And I, we, thank God for the opportunity to share with you events that have happened in my, our, life that has brought me closer to a God of Outrageous Love.
Side note: Notice we didn’t say I had a healing. I had no proof of the tumor, so I don’t know if I was healed or it was just old age from the beginning.
Who cares!
God was with me as I walked to the car and drove home and the six months before the Ct-scan, and I knew God was with me and taking care of me, and that’s all that matters.
