Will you still praise Me???

I spent the entire weekend in office shifting our Server and Networking Infrastructure to another room. During the course of this time (weekend), things were nothing short of crazy and i was just short of despair as nothing fell into place.

You touch one thing and the other would stop working; you do everything right, still things do not work. It was Sunday evening and i had to ensure that everything was working so that operations would not be affected from Monday; not to mention the fact that 2 high profile meetings were scheduled starting Monday. After 2 days of this madness, i was in tears (due to the pressure) and in desperation cried out to the Gud Lord. Then happened the 1st miracle - what seemed un-fixable over the course of 2 days, all fell into place in 45 minutes. The best part of it was, we did nothing new; merely tried what we had already done atleast 10 times earlier... Wow! Couldn't stop thanking God for He reigned supreme over situations and circumstances that we were able to do nothing about.

2 hours after that, tired, weary and exhausted (but VERY RELIEVED & THANKFUL) my team and me left for home. Woke up early today morning as had to come back to office to ensure everything was working fine for the meetings. As i was getting ready, kept praying that He would make sure that everything worked like clockwork today. And in His still small voice, i heard the Holy Spirit whispering to me a very pertinent question that stumped me... "If nothing worked the way it should and the whole network crashes today morning, will you still praise me???" The first thought that came to my mind is that if such a thing happened today, it would be my job at stake as the management would surely be breathing blood... But i replied with truth in my heart... "Lord, come what may i will not cease praising You!" Promptly i was reminded of Peter and how he denied Jesus before the cock crowed. I just said a short prayer for grace to not be like that... With that i started getting ready and promptly forgot all about this l'il conversation i had.

Reached office and almost sat back on my seat to relax because everything was working fine! But peace was not mine to be (atleast not for then) - all of a sudden and without warning, the entire network collapsed. Nothing was working. I rushed to the server room and started tweaking wires here and there. Tried plugging, unplugging, re-plugging, redoing - nothing worked. The network just refused to respond. I was back to my state of despair from the previous evening. I had 15 minutes before the meetings commenced and the network needed to get working before that. I was mad, furious and agitated. There was no reason for everything to stop working suddenly. We seemed to be back to square one. Exhausted and almost driven to tears, i sat down and switched off all networking equipment (sometimes a simple restarting of them helps).

As i sat down there, i again felt that familiar soft whisper of the Holy Spirit - "Will you still praise me?" My immediate response was "Lord, I just don't feel like it right now. And on top of that i have to get this thing working and NOW!!!" The immediate reply was simple - I was reminded (again) of Peter.

I stopped dead in the tracks of the racing thoughts in my mind and told my team to join me in a prayer. I prayed for grace for myself to trust Him. I prayed for the situation and I thanked God and praised Him for He was in control. I committed everything into His hands and asked that it would work well so that the meetings would commence and go on well so that the people attending would go back to their places of influence and made that difference for God's glory. I prayed for wisdom to deal with the issue at hand. And i THANKED HIM FOR HE IS IN CHARGE! As we were praying there was a sense of calm that took over and the 2nd miracle took place!

We finished praying, switched back the network equipment and for some strange reason, i started doing something that didn't make any logical sense. I don't know why i did it (it is not standard networking procedure or troubleshooting technique) and i can't remember what thoughts were in my mind as i did it; but as i look back i know i (my logical mind) was not the one calling the shots then. I hooked up things in a very different manner - in a manner that doesn't make any sense from a networking perspective. But guess what - immediately the entire network was back up and working. And yes, one minute later the meetings commenced as scheduled :-) A pastor once told me - "Our God specializes in granting us miracles between the neck and the knife" (with reference to Abraham & Isaac)

After confirming that things were working fine, my team and me took a step back and relooked and relooked and relooked at the new configuration i had setup. It made no logical sense whatsoever! We could think of no explanation of how this could possibly work!! And yet everything was working like clockwork!!! It is now 8 hrs later and there have been no issues since then :-) I still can't understand what made me put together this radical new configuration which makes no networking sense. I also still can't give any logical explanation as to why it is working!

But i do know one thing - i was prompted in the morning with one question - "If nothing worked the way it should and the whole network crashes today morning, will you still praise me???" Just like Peter, my response was i will Lord! But when the time came and He put me to the test, i was not just unwilling to praise Him, i was almost refusing to. Yet when i pushed myself and praised Him, wholeheartedly putting my trust in Him and praising Him for the fact that He was in charge of the situation; things changed for the better.

Our praise can work wonders too!!! The same God who shook the ground and broke open the doors of the prison Paul was in; as he CHOSE to praise God while in shackles is alive and wanting to give us our miracle when we most need it. Is it our not praising (and this is due to not trusting) Him in these situations the reason for the delay, postponing or (in some cases) the reason why we never receive our miracle?

The incidents of today morning made me realize one thing - we need His grace even to trust Him and praise Him. When all else fails and nothing seems to work out, when situation seems grave and nothing you do seems to have any effect; when you are full of anger and agitated about the way things are going, when you have no strength left and the last thing on your mind is praising God - Will you still praise Him???