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

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
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