He Blessed God Before the Danger Passed

The letter has a date on it and the date is in eleven days.

She has read it forty times. She has read it standing up in the hall and sitting on the stairs and once in the car outside the school with the engine off, and every time she reads it she is looking for a word she has not noticed yet, some clause that changes the shape of it, and there is not one.

Eleven days, and then a decision, and if it goes the wrong way she loses the house.

She is a woman of real faith. This is not a story about somebody who does not know God. She has prayed about this more than she has prayed about anything in her life, and there is a worn place on the arm of the sofa where her hand goes.

But here is what she has caught herself doing, and it bothers her.

She cannot praise Him.

She can ask. She can plead, and she is not embarrassed about pleading. She can quote things at the situation. What she cannot do, and she has tried three times now, is open her mouth and simply bless God for who He is, because something in her says: not yet. Not until I know. If I bless Him now and it goes the wrong way, what was that? What am I left holding?

So her praise is sitting in an envelope of its own, waiting for the same date.

Daniel blessed God in the night, with the order still standing

There is a night in Daniel chapter two that gets skipped because everybody wants to get to the statue.

The king has had a dream, and has ordered every wise man in Babylon killed, and Daniel is on that list, and the order is signed and the men are already going out to do it. Daniel asks for time. He goes home. He and his friends pray through the night.

Then the answer comes to him in a night vision. And here is what he does next, before he goes anywhere near the king, before anything is public, before the order is rescinded, before a single circumstance changes.

Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his (Daniel 2:19 and 20).

Read what he blesses Him for. Not for the deliverance, in the first line. For who He is. Wisdom and might are His. He changes the times and the seasons. He knows what is in the darkness.

The execution order was still standing when that sentence came out of his mouth.

You are permitted to bless God before the verdict, and it is not a bet you are placing. Scripture puts that praise in the middle of the night with the danger still live, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives a person words for God's character when their circumstances have not yet produced any evidence.

What you are actually afraid of

Now let me say the thing you have not said, because you are far too honest to pretend and far too frightened to say it plainly.

You are not withholding praise because you doubt God. You are withholding it because you are protecting yourself.

If you bless Him now and the letter goes the wrong way, you will have to hold two things at once: that you praised Him, and that it went badly. And you are not sure your heart can carry both without something breaking. So you have put your praise in the same envelope as the decision, and you will open them together, and that way whatever you say will match whatever happened.

That is not faithlessness. That is a woman bracing. And I love you too much to call it a sin when it is a wound.

You are held whichever way the letter goes, and the holding does not depend on the outcome. The word says nothing shall separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38 and 39), and that list includes things present and things to come, and it is the Holy Spirit who is called the earnest of our inheritance, a deposit that does not get returned when a week goes badly.

Blessing God is not the same as predicting the outcome

Here is the thing that unlocks it, and it is the reason Daniel's praise was not a gamble.

When you bless God for who He is, you are not making a forecast. You are stating something that is true irrespective of what is in the envelope. Wisdom and might are His whether the decision goes your way or not. He knows what is in the darkness either way. He changes the times and the seasons on the days that go well and the days that do not.

So there is nothing to be left holding. The sentence does not become false if the letter goes the wrong way, which means it is not a bet and it never was.

You have something true to say tonight that eleven days cannot make false. The word says God is not a man that He should lie, and that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever (Hebrews 13:8), and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an unchanging thing feel like ground under a woman's feet rather than a doctrine on a page.

And I will not oversell this, because this site does not sell outcomes and I will not sell you one now. Blessing God tonight does not tell you what happens in eleven days. It is not a lever and I would be lying to you if I dressed it as one. What is settled is that your mouth does not have to wait for a date, and that there is something true you can say tonight that the letter has no power over.