Skip to main content

Praise

           “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Corinthians 15:55-57)

After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.  (Acts 16:23-25)

 

When the going gets tough, the tough get…praising? Maybe I’m wrong, but I suspect that most of us have a hard time praising on our own unless it’s a response to something that happens. We praise when we get together and sing worship music, or when we turn on worship music at home, and that’s certainly allowable, but I know that when I wake up in the morning, my tendency isn’t to start out with “God, You are a wonderful God. Thank you for being Yourself…” It’s more likely, “Help, God, it’s morning again and my feet don’t want to do their job. I have so much to do…”

I also suspect that there’s some habit involved here. Some time ago, I think I wrote that I wanted to start listening to worship music first thing in the morning. Like so many other good ideas, it got lost in the shuffle of life, but let’s return to it. If we are going to get ready to praise when we’re in shackles, or refuse to bow when we’re commanded to worship the golden image, we’re going to have to learn to praise when we trip over our own two feet, or someone picks up the last box of what you’d gone to the store to buy, or the traffic light turns red, or any of the thousands of little nothings that tend to destroy our day. And if we’re going to learn to praise when something minor happens, we’re going to have to learn to praise when good things happen, and when nothing happens. Because if we don’t praise when there’s cause to, or when there’s no cause not to, we’re not likely to learn to praise when the going gets tough.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more