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Woo Hoo

             “How great you are, Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. (II Samuel 7:22)

One of the books I read about personal mission statements said that you should be so familiar with your mission statement that if someone woke you from a sound sleep with a gun to your head and yelled, “What’s your mission in life?” you could answer. Sometimes, it seems as though we’re supposed to be just as likely to enthusiastically praise God – not just when the gun’s to our head, but as we’re talking down the street, as we’re watching the same stupid cartoon we’ve watched every day for the last ten because a grandchild loves it, as we look at a To Do list that will take ten days and should have been done two days ago – any time, in any emotional state, we’re supposed to burst into exuberant praise in perfect poetic form and without quoting anything that anyone has ever said before.

And we should. God is that great. He is that sovereign. There is no one like Him – there is no God except Him. But we aren’t able to maintain that level of enthusiasm every second of our lives. There are times when “WOO HOO” might possibly come out “woo hoo,” “woo,” or “boo hoo.”

We tend to forget that there are imprecatory psalms (curses), lamentation psalms (Boo hoo), psalms of thanksgiving, and psalms of joy and praise. Moreover, while David is known for his psalms, they aren’t generally written in a vacuum. There’s something that takes place that leads to his excitement, anger, sorrow, frustration, and joy. In the case of this psalm, David had planned to build a “house for the Lord.” God had told David, “No,” but He’d told David of His plans for David’s descendants. In other words, David had every reason to be jumping up and down and high-fiving God.

Some humans think they have a right to require that those in their presence behave as if they’re feeling a specific feeling – usually a positive emotive state. We’ve made it almost a crime to be anything other than effervescent and to claim to be Christian. Sometimes we do this to ourselves. Sometimes, others do it to us. The result is that a wall is built between the non-cheery Christians and other Christians or God. If you cannot approach God or someone else unless you’re wearing a huge grin, your Christianity becomes a lie or a defeat.

          It’s only when we are free to say, “God, it’d be nice to do the Yay, God! Thing, but I’m not there now,” that we are actually free to say and to mean, “Yay, God!” Today, God is great. God is good. But I’m not at a pep rally. I’m closer to a “Hey God, care to have a cup of coffee and chat?” And that’s OK, too.

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