Praise the Lord!

 

Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! (Psalm 150 ESV).

 

The last psalm is hard! It begins with the simple enjoinder of “Praise the Lord!” (v. 1). Well, praising the Lord isn’t rational. It is at odds with our high–tech lives, it rejects our culture’s standards of achievement, control, and objectivity. It goes way beyond our limited world of e–mail, tweets, and social media. The truth is that praise invites us to see life as mystery and gift. Embracing a wider reality, it puts aside passive routines and pious sounding platitudes. It creates room for imagination. Praise is disruptive, boisterous, and disordered. But even more, praise is an act of trust. When we praise, we entrust our life to God the King. We say or even shout, “God runs our life!”

 

The Psalter begins its prayer journey with confidence. Psalm 1 speaks of two ways: the blessings of living God’s way and the pitfalls of human–centered living. Then the psalms pray every human trouble: questions, doubts, anxieties, fears, even darkness and hatred. Now this ancient prayer book gives us a final word: praise.

 

Praise of God isn’t easy or naïve; it comes after suffering. It is not demanding; it asks for no answers or favors. It knows life is flawed. It knows the world is skewed, that sometimes innocent people suffer. It faces reality. Still, it calls the whole world to mobilize in an orchestra of praise. The final psalm tells anyone who will listen: God is King. He gives us our breath. And the wisest thing to do with that breath is to “praise the Lord”!

 

In being as honest with myself as possible, I find that much of the breath God gives me, is spent in complaining and whining. When its winter, it’s too cold; when it’s summer, it’s too hot. And, of course, even the little bit of fall and spring we get in Texas is too short! Why can’t the bluebonnets last longer? Why can the colors of fall be more brilliant, longer? Why is my world so hard? Well, the truth is simply that God knows what He is doing and even if He were to let me in on His reasons for everything in my life, I do not have the capacity to understand the fullness of His grace. Praise is hard because it calls for a measure of trust and faith in Him. He is worthy of that trust. Let your days be filled with praise for Him alone.