One of the beauties of the Psalms is that it exhorts us to praise God, not only that, the Psalms draw our hearts to praising God. Through the Psalms, we get to see real examples, life cases of the psalmist going through difficulties like us; we get to see real emotions, identify with them and apply the remedy given. I have been going through the Psalms lately and I am taking my time in this book this year. There are definitely common themes that can be drawn out but today, I personally would like to focus on the idea of giving our praises to God. What does it mean really to praise God? When should we praise God? Is there a way to praise God? How often should we praise Him and why should we praise Him? These questions, are all genuine. I believe they sum up what go into our minds when we hear the expression “praising God”. In this post, my goal is to shed some light on this topic in no particular order while using examples of praises found in the Psalms.
To praise, according to Merriam-Webster is 1) to express a favourable judgement of (e.g.: commend) or 2) to glorify (a god or saint) especially by the attribution of perfections. In other words, when we praise, we are simply ascribing what is true about the object of our praise. For us Christians, when we praise, we are attributing to God what is rightfully His (the glory, and the honour). The Psalms tell us that praise is what the earth, the creation should be doing: “let everything that has breath praise the Lord” (Psalm 150:6). This includes heavenly beings as we see in Psalms and Revelation angels praising the Lord in His Holy Temple (Psalm 148:2, Rev 7:11-12). We also see in other Psalms that praising is the portion of the righteous, of those who fear the Lord (Psalm 68:3). Perhaps, most importantly, it is a command from God. I believe, if any other reasons, this should answer the question of why we praise God. Indeed, as we praise, we give back to God what belongs to God. We reflect Him back, we are in effect validating (not that He needs validation from us) His character (the truthfulness, the perfection, the holiness, etc.). When I read the Psalms, praising God is not an elaborate exercise, and it is not something that has to be difficult; even though it is a command, it is a simple one. It is also not an activity that requires months of planning and careful preparation; it is not an activity that is required only for a certain class of people, no, praising God is for all His creatures and even more so for His righteous (redeemed). Those who submit to the Lord will have no problem praising Him. Praising God is an action that allows us to be humbled as we elevate the One from whom all blessings flow. Thus, the way to praise God is to do so with a humble heart. As a matter of fact, you cannot praise God with prideful heart.
Perhaps the hardest thing about praising God is its correlation or lack thereof to circumstances. We are commanded to praise the Lord always and this, irrespective of the situation and circumstances we are in. Whether in good times or in bad, the command still stands. In many Psalms, David is praising God in the midst of his difficulties; while he cries out to God, he declares that God’s praise is on his tongue (Psalm 66:17). Moreover, we see David praising God continually, all day long whether his breakthrough is here or not (Psalm 71:8). David had learned to disassociate the activity of praising God to situations or feelings. Praising God is a work of the spirit; therefore, it should not be tainted by the flesh. The flesh looks at what I am going through, it looks at what I see or don’t see, it looks at how I am feeling and so forth but the spirit is wired towards ascribing honour and glory to God irrespective of what is going on in my mind, in my body, and in my world. Because praising God is so linked to worshipping God, I believe it is no coincidence that Jesus said that true worshippers will worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Praising God can be difficult when everything around you scream the contrary of what you are declaring about God; praising God can be difficult when you are not seeing the promises of God come to pass; praising God can be difficult when your reality is in direct contradiction to the word of God, and the attributes of God. However, in those same moments, we are called to praise Him still because God’s character does not depend on circumstances or situations, it does not depend on us, what we feel or think. God is bigger than us, He is beyond what we can fathom. God’s truthfulness cannot be thwarted by what we believe about Him or don’t. He remains the same, there is not an iota of character that changes in God when we praise Him or don’t praise Him. But, when we do praise Him, we are aligning ourselves to the truth, we are agreeing that we do not fully comprehend and that we believe Him. I find it interesting that praising God can be likened to doing something by faith because you declare characteristics about God that you may or may not see yet. Indeed, praising God is a powerful spiritual activity and like any spiritual activity, it requires that the flesh be dead. In the case of praising, the flesh is your mind, what you think, what you see, what is real. All these are good but when we praise God, we must only focus on what the bible says about God and what God says about Himself.
I pray the Lord reveals to us the power that lies behind praising Him regardless of what our day-to-day looks like. I pray we learn to be spirit filled people instead of being filled with our own understanding. May the Lord have mercy on us.
A Word Aptly Spoken 