Posted by: mikenicholsblog | March 22, 2020

praise perspective

This morning before praying, I reviewed verses in Psalm 145 on praise. We have all been so deep in the weeds of Covid-19, that giving praise may have drifted away from front and center as we call out to God on this virus. Well, David reminded me that it shouldn’t.

I will exalt you, my God and King, and praise your name forever and ever. I will praise you every day; yes, I will praise you forever. Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!  No one can measure his greatness. Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power. I will meditate on your majestic, glorious splendor and your wonderful miracles.
Psalm 145:1-5 (NLT)

We all need perspective … praise perspective!  As Christ-followers, we understand that God knows everything about Covid-19, cares for us personally, and will guide us day by day. So, for encouragement today, I have copied a true story about another tough time. Just like then, God does miracles today!  And even before we see miracles, we can praise.

During Desert Storm the United States Marine Corps was ordered to push up the Saudi Arabian coast through the minefields in southern Kuwait and capture Kuwait City. To move 80,000 marines up that coast, we had to build a logistics support base. We built that base at Kabrit, 30 kilometers south of Kuwait and 30 kilometers in from the Persian Gulf. We picked Kabrit because it was an old airfield that had water wells that provided 100,000 gallons of water a day. The Marines needed that much water daily to carry troops into Kuwait.

Fourteen days before the war began, General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander in chief of the central command, made a daring move called the “great left hook.” This sweep of forces flanked the Iraqi army. It was a great move, but it forced the Marine Corps to move 140 kilometers to the northwest and locate a new logistic space at the Gravel Plains.

There was no water. For fourteen days we had engineers digging desperately to find water. We went to the Saudi government and asked if they knew of any water in this area, and their answer was no. We brought the exiled Kuwaiti government down to our command post and asked, “Do you know if there’s any water in this area?” They said no. We went to the Bedouin tribes and the nomads, the people who lived in that area, and said, “Do you know where there’s water on the Gravel Plain?”

They said, “There’s no water there.” We kept digging wells hundreds of feet deep — to no avail.

Every morning at 7:15 a.m., during my devotional time, I asked the Lord to help us find water. On the Sunday before we were to enter Kuwait, I was in a chapel Service, where we were praying for water, when a colonel came to the tent and said, “General, I need to show you something.”

We drove down a road we had built through the desert from the Gravel Plains to the border of Kuwait. About a mile down that road, the officer said, “Look over there.” About twenty yards off the road was a tower that reached fifteen feet into the air. It was a white tower, and at the top of the tower was a cross. Off the ends of the cross were canvas sleeves used in old train stations to put water into train engines. At the base of that cross was an eight-foot-high pump, newly painted red. Beside that pump was a diesel engine, and beside that, four batteries still in their plastic. On the engine were an On button and an Off button.

I pushed the On button, and the engine kicked over immediately. I called one of my engineers and asked him to test the flow coming out of the pipes. An hour later he said, “Sir, it is putting out 100,000 gallons a day.”

General Charles Krulak, in a message given at the Leadership Prayer Breakfast, Wheaton, Illinois, October 2000

In a search for this story you would find that it was called the “The Miracle Well” by the London Times. I was challenged by the verses this morning to think of praise and miracles. We all know believers should praise, and that our Father still does miracles

My challenge for you today is to start every morning praising … every morning. And don’t discount our Father’s ability to intervene with miracle-working power. Do you still believe in miracles? He still does them!


Leave a Comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

Categories

%d bloggers like this: