To Praise God – A Way Of Life (Part 4)
As the people of God, we must also be the people of praise, for to know God is to love Him, and to love Him is to praise and worship Him.
A few years ago here in Trinidad, the national soccer team qualified for the first time ever in our country’s history, for the World Cup. There was tremendous joy and jubilation throughout the length and breadth of Trinidad and Tobago, and even up the Caribbean Islands. People who never followed soccer before suddenly had a voice; and there was flag waving and merry-making in our streets for a long time. Strangers were greeting each other, tooting their horns at each other. It was tremendous. But shouldn’t we be just as vocal – if not more – for the Only True God who made it all happen? Those who did not know much about the game suddenly became very enthused about it, and they too could have been heard greeting their neighbours and friends.
When you come to know who God is; when you come to know of the great deeds He has done; when you come to experience personally, in your own life, His matchless power at work in you and in situations around you, it is impossible to be silent about it. Psalm 96: 4 says, “Yahweh is great, loud must be His praise” not for the sake of being vociferous, but because He is just so great and there is none other like Him; because he is unrivalled, He is unmatched, and the greatest and the absolute best part is He is EMMANUEL – GOD WITH US! And this “God with us” loves each and every one of us with a love that is simply incredible. When this truth enters not just our minds, but our hearts, then loud will be our praise, and as we learn to praise God in spirit and in truth, then you will notice that obstacles flee from before you.
In one of my earlier articles, I pointed out that the Word of God in Psalm 96: 4 says, “Yahweh is great, loud must be His praise.” Does that loud mean vociferous? It means with conviction and from the heart. One of the things I like doing is walking up and down a hill here in Trinidad. I get a really great workout there. Now because coming down is a lot easier, I would normally do a lot of upper body exercises to keep the adrenalin flowing. I would normally do all of this to the rhythm of praise songs playing in my head – mostly songs like Celebrate Jesus Celebrate, What a Mighty God We Server etc. On this particular evening as I was coming down, going through my routine, someone passed me in the opposite direction and exclaimed, “he’s praising God!” I smiled to myself. I did not say a single word, yet this person saw from my action that I was praising the God of all gods. Yes God is indeed great and loud must be His praise!
In faith, we praise God we cannot see, and in so doing, our faith in God is strengthened. We praise God not because we are looking for favours. We praise Him not because of the marvellous works He has done. We praise the unseen God because of who He is. His resume warrants our praise and adoration. When we do this, a very powerful thing happens; EMMANUEL – God inhabits our praise. God comes to us, and where God is, tremendous blessings flow. Where God is, an reservoir of graces abound. Where God is, there is mercy. Where God is there is healing. Where God is there is deliverance. Where God is, there too is the brilliance of His wonderful light. Where God is, the enemy has to flee. Very recently, I was told a story by a friend of someone who was held up by bandits at gunpoint. The person did not panic. They placed their life in God’s hands and started to praise him, and the gun toting bandits fled! Such is the power of our praise because the very presence of God comes.
True praise brings about inner conversion. When we truly praise God with and from our hearts, He reveals Himself to us. God who is perfect – Emmanuel – comes to us, and in so doing, our eyes should be opened to our own imperfections, our sinfulness, our faults and failings that cost God who is Perfect, who is Light, who is Love, to have to pay the price of His only Son on the cross of Calvary. True praise is therefore a very humbling experience. If this does not cause us to repent; to be humbled, then something may be wrong with our praise. There is a term we use in Trinidad parlance called “papi-show” which means to fool. If our praise does not cause us to be humbled and lead to repentance, then maybe we are “papi-showing” God. Maybe we are fooling God. But God knows all things. Psalm 139 tells us ‘the words are not even on our tongue, but God already knows all about it’. So we are not really fooling God at all, we are fooling ourselves.
Our world does what it is accustomed to doing; it lies to us. It tells us that to publicly demonstrate our faith and belief in Christ Jesus does not make sense. It makes our young people feel that to live the Catholic faith just is not ‘cool’. It’s not the in thing to do. So if you do not want to be laughed at and ridiculed, drop the faith thing; and don’t bother too much about Jesus. The great deceiver is behind all of this because he know oh too well what will happen to him if the people of God really got together to praise and to worship our God. I remember seeing an old western movie a few years ago, where the star of the movie came riding into town and told the bad guy who was terrorizing the people, “Hey mister, there ain’t room here for both you and me. So pick up your saddle bag, drop your weapons and flee!” The devil knows very well that if the people of God truly lived lives in praise and worship, that he will have to drop his weapons and leave town with great haste. So to try to avoid this, he tried and will continue to try to fill our hearts and our minds with doubt and fear over living our faith. But as the people of God, our eyes must be opened to the truth and we must live in that truth. We must not; we cannot be afraid or ashamed to live in the truth that will set us free in so many ways.
Our world is in desperate need of our public demonstration of our faith. Our world desperately needs us to be that which we are called to be, “salt of the earth” to add taste to our tasteless world, and to be “the lights of Christ” in a world that is filled with darkness. In one of my favourite songs, the author wrote,
“We are called to take His light
To a world where wrong seems right
What could be too great a cost
For sharing life with one who’s lost”
This is our calling. This is what God has called us to. If we live our faith, if we are not ashamed to bear witness to the truth that God is God unrivalled and that there is no other god besides Him. That He is the All-Powerful, All-Merciful All-Wise and Ever-Present God that loves us. That He sent His Son who is Jesus Christ, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, to die on a cross for us so that our sins would be taken away, and that on the third day, He arose from the dead, conquering hell, death and the grave, and in so doing, He has made a way – a highway to heaven – so that you and I may have the chance at eternal life; if we live in this truth, then praise will become second nature to us, and we will be transformed and so too will this world.
