Praiseworthy

I have this file on my phone entitled “Praiseworthy.” In it is a list of about thirty words of praise. I made this list so that I could easily refer to it when our daughter was doing her work. Instead of using the same words of encouragement repeatedly, like great or terrific, I had a convenient list of accolades at my fingertips to inspire my child. “That was incredible!” I would say. “Astounding! Remarkable! Splendid! Exceptional! Fabulous!” Her father would always call her “Dyno-mite,” so I threw that one in there too.” Words of affirmation are important. Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the bones.” You can basically make or break someone with the words you use because “the power of life and death are in the tongue” (Prov.18:21). Now, at four years old, she has become very good at encouraging herself. She has her own words of affirmation that she uses before she does anything. Before practicing her violin, she says, “I am a professional violinist! I am a musical genius!” But of course, we must always give honor where it is due and so she rounds out her little mantra by quoting Psalm 115:1, “Not to us LORD, not to us, but to Your name be the glory for Your love and faithfulness.”

When you speak things over your life or your situation it is not magic. You don’t just poof and become Einstein because you call yourself a mathematical genius. No, the words you speak are evidence of your faith. The work you do towards the goal or the matter at hand is evidence of your faith. The trust you place in Almighty God, despite the lack of evidence in the physical, is a display of your faith. “As for Me, this is my covenant with you: I have made you the father of many nations.” That was God talking to Abraham in Genesis 17:4, Abraham and Sarah did not have children and the chances were looking slim. How would Abraham be the father of many nations? God was speaking those things which were not as though they were, He was calling things into existence that did not exist. And because of Abraham’s faith, and because he trusted and obeyed the LORD, he and Sarah had a son. When you are obedient to God in the midst of your circumstance, that is your faith on display. To say, regardless of what I am going through, regardless of what it looks like, regardless of how far it may seem that I am from accomplishing my goal, I am going to stay the course, read God’s Word, pronounce it over my life and my children’s lives and trust Him.

I was telling someone the other day about our journey to conceiving our daughter. I said, “It took us ten years and now I know why because she is literally the most incredible human being I have ever met. God took His time and pulled out all the stops, we got all the bells and whistles! Anything good is worth waiting for and I give all praise and glory to God for Charlotte Penelope Brandon!” During those ten years of waiting, my husband and I were praying, we were reading, and trusting in God’s Word. It was difficult, but we declared and proclaimed every day that we had a healthy child. We spoke aloud those things that were not, as though they were. Then the LORD answered prayer, I was finally pregnant! We started reading scriptures and declaring life, health, and love over our little embryo. We proclaimed over our fetus to be kind, loving, faithful, and righteous, and because we didn’t know her gender, we even started calling her “Baby Righteous.” And when we learned we were having a girl we started declaring and proclaiming what kind of girl she would be, “God’s girl” and that’s one of the names we still call her to this day.

What we did may sound extreme but when you want something you’ve never had, you do what you’ve never done. Scripture will tell you, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). Ten years of faith and work, doing things we’d never done before, trusting in a way we had never trusted before, and ten years in, we received a child, not just any child but a child that was a direct answer to our fervent, effectual prayers. A child who keeps getting better day by day, praise be to God!

I believe in the power of prayer, I believe in the power of faith in Jesus Christ, I believe in the power to speak God’s Holy Word over your life and situation and to see Him produce extraordinary results. I praise our child when she does something well, positive reinforcement, but I praise God because He is always worthy of praise! God, You are praiseworthy because You are good, You are kind and merciful and so full of grace. “Not to us, LORD, not to us, but to Your name be the glory for your love and faithfulness!”