Journey into Lightl

Many of us know we need to praise God often and yet we don’t. What is there about God that isn’t worthy of praise?

This week I have observed God’s praiseworthiness working in the lives of three friends. For my first friend, God protected her from becoming a paraplegic when she was pitched off a horse and landed on her head. She broke her back but is expected to fully recover.

For the second friend, God provided the love of his life after waiting for God’s choice for ten years. And for the third friend, God provided wisdom and support to reach out for help in a stressful situation that enabled him to avoid slipping back into alcoholism.

God deserves to be praised from these examples because of his protection, goodness, and support and for the many other demonstrations of his greatness and blessings that we see.

Then why is it so hard for us to praise him? Perhaps we need to review why praising God is the right thing to do and then how to grow in it.

Why Praise Him?

One big reason to praise God often is that he commands it. “From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised” (Psalm 113:3). He deserves it, and he wants us to acknowledge this reality.

Another reason to praise him is to increase our faith. By praising him for our blessings, we give God credit for them. Otherwise, we tend to give ourselves or someone else the adoration.

By praising him for such things as making everything, reigning over the nations, and his loving nature, our reliance on him grows. For example, by praising him for giving us a new identity, we more easily cease striving after the importance, acceptance and love that he has already given us.

Praising him also can keep us humble. When we praise him for making the heavens, the moon and all the stars and at the same time realize that he deeply respects and loves us, we are humbled because we know we didn’t earn it.

How to Grow in Praising God

 We can grow in praising God as we grow in understanding what he has given to us. These blessings include:

• A guarantee we will be one day be in heaven with him forever

• We will one day have a pain-free, pleasurable, and joyous daily experience

• We will one day be in the physical presence of the most loving Person imaginable

• God’s promise to work all our problems for our good.

• His guarantee never to reject us and to always love us no matter how bad we are

This understanding of what God has given us comes from prayer as he reveals our blessings to us. Paul didn’t leave it to his teaching that people would understand. He prayed earnestly that “they would understand how wide, how long, and how deep God’s love is. That they would experience this love that is beyond their ability to understand it intellectually” (Ephesians 3:18, paraphrased).

One final thought about how to praise God in a deeper way is to focus on him more and less on the multitude of distractions in this life. God says to us in Philippians 4 that we need to meditate on all the positive things of life. Things that are true, honorable, lovely, admirable, excellent and worthy of praise. God is these things and infinitely more. Let’s praise him for it by focusing on his greatness.