
How often do you think about praising God?
What comes to mind when you consider praise?
Singing? Praying? Fellowshipping?
In this brief article, I want to unpack the idea that praise is more than just the previously mentioned acts of worship.
Praise is actually the completion of our love for God. It is the closing of the circle of our interactions with God in any and every situation. Let's look at a couple of examples from the bible below.
In the book of Judges, two deliverers are raised up by God to free the people of Israel from the hand of the Canaanites. Their names were Deborah and Barak. Deborah was a prophetess, someone who spoke the word of the Lord to the people. Barak was a man from the tribe of Naphtali, chosen by God to fight for his people. The Lord used both of these judges in different but important ways, one to speak the marching orders for the other.
When Barak obeyed the word of the Lord, he went on to fight the Canaanites and defeat their army, leading to a retreat by their commander, Sisera. When he fled and sought refuge in the tent of an ally named Jael, this bold woman lulled the commander to sleep and drove a tent peg into his temple with a mallet. It is an awesome story. Check it out sometime in Judges 4-5. But for the purpose of this article, I want to highlight what happened after the battle and subsequent victory.
In chapter 5 of Judges, we find Barak and Deborah singing something of a victorious duet. Now this may seem strange to us at first read. For us, we may think that the post victory celebration should consist of beers with the boys, but for ancient people groups like the Israelites, the end of great battles were often marked with songs of praise recounting the incredible ways the Lord delivered them in the fight. This is important to note, because it reveals an important and often lost piece of the puzzle for our relationship with God, namely that the deliverance of the Lord from any and every situation cannot end with a simple 'thanks,' but must end with genuine and heartfelt praise.
Deborah and Barak spend many verses recounting the dire situation the nation of Israel was in, the way in which God raised them up to deliver, and the honor and glory for the victory going solely to God himself. In doing this, they are showing us that when God acts on our behalf, as he does in every situation we ever find ourselves in, the only logical response on our part is to praise him for what he has done. Without this praise, the love we should be giving to him for his mighty works is incomplete.
Another great example of this is found in the life of David. Anointed king as a young shepherd boy, David's reign on the throne of Israel would not come to be for many long and arduous years. You see, following his spiritual anointing, Saul was actually made king of Israel. David became a close confidant of Saul, but quickly found himself on the receiving end of much hatred and envy from the mentally-unstable king. This eventually led to a wild game of cat-and-mouse, with Saul chasing David all over the wilderness of Israel, seeking to end the young mans life. David slept in caves and dodged arrows, fought for his life and trusted God through it all. When the day finally came that David was delivered from the hands of his unrelenting oppressor, David wrote a beautiful and heart-stirring song that we know as Psalm 18.
This psalm consists of 50 verses in our English bible, spending line after line praising and exalting the mighty God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for his wondrous deeds in protecting and delivering David. The psalm begins with, "I love you, O LORD, my strength," and ends with, "Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever."
This psalm is another beautiful example for us of the way in which our praise completes our love for God and his work in our lives. David could have uttered a simple thank you or not even acknowledged his deliverance at all. Sadly, that is what happens with most of us. We pray about something and then don't even bother to thank God when he answers the prayer. But for David, his heart was so bent towards loving God that his natural response was to sing praises to the God of his salvation.
Now this may seem like an abstract concept, but in closing, let me bring this idea home to the family.
My wife is tremendously talented in the kitchen. She prepares wonderful meals for our family and always leaves us in awe of her abilities. But one thing I have noticed is the effect of praising her for the meal. Now I am not saying that my wife is some sort of attention-seeking diva who must be praised for everything she does. That would not be a praise-worthy attribute. But what makes her feel complete after a long evening of working in the kitchen to prepare a lavish dinner for the kids and I is not simply, "Thanks honey." It is when I tell the children to thank God for blessing them with a mother who so diligently prepares meals for them. It is when I take the time to thank my wife for the countless hours she spends shopping for the right ingredients at the best prices in order to bring something heartfelt and delicious to us. It is when I speak highly of her to others and praise her selflessness in loving our family day in and day out.
You see, the praising of my wife actually completes my love for her in any and every situation. It is the same with God, but on an even grander scale. My wife does not keep my heart beating; my wife does not keep the stars in the sky and the planets in orbit; my wife does not hold the universe together by the word of her power; God does. And if we rightly recognize all of that, not to mention the minute ways in which God is overseeing and blessing our lives every second of every day, we should earnestly seek to praise him for that.
Praise completes love.
Selah.