“And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me” (Psalm 50 :15)

The Bible is full of assurances from the Lord to believers, assurances that God will hear us if we consent to do our part. This is the case of Matthew 7:7, Mark 11:24, Isaiah 65:24, Jeremiah 33:3, which is echoed in Psalm 50:15, our anchor verse. Many Christians know this verse by heart to the point of being able to recite it instinctively.

It should be noted, however, that the promise of deliverance does not depend only on invoking the Lord in the day of trouble. God will indeed be all the more prompt to deliver us if we have previously taken care to fulfill certain conditions indicated in Psalm 50:14 KJV which says "Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most-High."

Beloved, our God takes great pleasure in the thanksgiving of his people. Defined as "a process of gratitude that consists in giving thanks for a grace received, a success or a blessing, transforming gratitude into active praise" , thanksgiving is a sacrifice whose scope few Christians really master. We are often so much quicker to submit our petitions to God and so reluctant to thank Him!

A man of God recounted how, in one of his prayers, he prayed God with insistence to increase the membership of his church. After a few minutes, the Lord stopped him and said, "Shut up! Am I your errand boy? Have you already thanked me for everything I've done for the church so far? Spend the next 7 days doing nothing but thanking me."

The man of God obeyed. However, in the middle of a prayer of thanksgiving, he found himself presenting petitions to God who systematically brought him back to order. When he had finished the 7 days, the Lord said to him, "So far, you have only experienced addition in the growth of the church. Prepare for multiplication now." And this is what happened. The church experienced exponential growth in its membership.

Beloved, in addition to thanksgiving, paying one’s vows is the second key condition for the Lord to deliver us when we call on Him in the day of trouble. In that regards, Deuteronomy 23:21-23 and Ecclesiastes 5:3-4 guide us on how we should behave when we make vows unto the Most-High. We should not delay to pay our vows for fear of drawing God’s wrath upon us. May God himself help us with this.