Radical Praise

Once upon a time, praise was a limited concept to me.  I often associated it with worship time at church.  It conjured up images in my head of people kneeling or bowing down before the Lord, bowing their heads to pray, lifting hands in the air.  Then, I came to realize praise is a lifestyle.  As I researched the meanings of praise and worship in Hebrew, I discovered that they also mean to shine forth, to dance, to spring about wildly with joy, to jump for joy, to spin around under the influence of strong emotion, to rejoice and be glad, to exult, to shout, even to split the ears with sound (Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the Lord Most High is awesome (Psalm 47:1-2)).  I think these are my favorites:  to celebrate hilariously and to be clamorously foolish.  (Definitions in Hebrew from: http://www.topraise.net/pages/ropaw/hebrew-words.htm)

Praise is about rejoicing before the Lord, making a fool of ourselves in front of Him, dancing, shouting, singing…living in abundance and joy.  And when we do not feel like rejoicing, when we are weighed down by the burdens of life, we must choose to move beyond our circumstances and rejoice anyway.  Why?  Because it breaks the back of the enemy and invites the Lord in.  Suddenly, we are in His Presence, and we are transformed.

So how do we get there? 

First, we must choose to seek Him daily, regardless of our circumstances or emotions.  Whether that is in His Word, turning on praise music, praying aloud or in silence.  As mentioned before, praise comes in a host of different colors and styles.  What does it for you?  Where and how do you feel closest to God?  But I extend this caveat, while knowing our personal preferences is important, these can also be a deterrent.  The enemy knows us well and can use our emotions to steer us off track. 

For example, we all have different preferences in styles of music, ones that can really lift us up and others that are just so-so or even grate on our nerves.  However, when it comes to singing to the Lord, a pastor once pointed out that it doesn’t really matter what we feel in that moment, because it isn’t for us; it is for the Lord.  We must put the focus on God.  It may not elevate our hearts immediately.  But as we continue in the pursuit of praising God, things change.  We change; our hearts change.  And suddenly, those circumstances, good or bad, are irrelevant because we are in the presence of the Lord.

So what else can we do to get there?

I propose we begin by allowing the child in all of us to be filled with wonder and awe in the presence of things discovered, in the presence of beauty and grace, in the presence of God.  How do we arrive at this?  How do we take back what was ours or perhaps what was never ours?  I recommend purchasing a license to be astonished, to enjoy, to revel, to praise God.  It’s free and will transport you to a world of joy and disembodied rapture in the blink of an eye.  It is a place where youth and the freedom that comes with it remain.  Perhaps it is a bit like Sir J. M. Barrie’s fabled Neverland, or perhaps it is even more amazing than that.  Perhaps it is a place that is real to each of us in our own time, in our own way, that is, according to God’s design for each of us.  Yes, perhaps.

What a wonderful word—perhaps.  No boundaries, no limitations.  Only possibility.  Improbability is no longer a factor because with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26).  All things.  Not some things – all things.  It means that marriages can be repaired, children can be healed of Down’s syndrome, the blind can see and the lame will walk – it means that life can be restored, revived, replenished, renewed.  It means that Isaiah 61:1 and the Great Commission are for today.

I love how A.W. Tozer puts it: “leave a margin for miracles.” (,p. 12)  We need to leave room for God to show up.  Chip Ingram says dream “God-sized dreams”.  If they aren’t God-sized, we don’t really need Him to make them happen.  We need to stop limiting God; we need to expect Him.  We do this by inviting Him in with praise and prayers of thanksgiving and gratitude and expecting Him to answer, to show up powerfully.  I don’t mean that He will always answer our prayers the way we want.  I don’t mean that He will always give us the miracle, but He can and will sometimes.  But if we never ask, if we never hope, if we never seek Him, how can we expect Him to answer?  If we never give Him glory and honor and praise that are His alone, how can we expect Him to show up in power and with purpose?  We need to invite Him into everything, even the little things, because everything matters to Him – from our greatest joys and heartaches to our tiniest desires (like a chocolate bar).  We need to invite Him in, then, expect Him to show up.  And when we invite Him, praising Him, whether it be through prayer or singing or holding someone’s hand when they are ill, giving your time to a child, writing a book, or giving to one in need, His glory descends upon us.  The glory comes when the King is in the house, that is, when He’s invited.  And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17), the veil is lifted (2 Corinthians 3:16).  Amen.

So take the time to praise Him today, even if it's for 10 seconds.  Give Him time, give Him praise, and be transformed.

Until next time...

But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate^[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (II Corinthians 3:16-18, NIV).

Childlike Faith

When I was a child, I stood in wonder as I gazed upon the stars and the man in the moon.  I still remember the first time I looked at him magnified.  I was six years old, lying in my grandparents’ front yard looking through Grandpa’s binoculars.  That was a long time ago, but I remember it as though it were yesterday. 

I looked into the heavens, and I saw.  I saw that there were wonderful worlds far far away, and I was awestruck.  It made me dream dreams so big that it would take a big God, a mighty God to put them into place.  I thought anything was possible.  I had faith.  I believed.

Children have the ability to see what we as adults cannot see.  There are far fewer ideas, walls, presuppositions, and misconceptions.  As we grow older, it becomes more challenging to “see”.    The Lord calls us to come to Him as children, i.e., have childlike faith (Matthew 18:1-5, Luke 18:15-17).  This type of faith allows us to come to Him without pretense, and with less of a tendency to limit Him.  It is a faith that prohibits boundaries to belief.  With age, hopefully, comes wisdom.  However, with age we also bear the brutal scars of reality, and that reality can preclude us from trusting the God of the universe to come through as He promises to do.

I have been a Christian a long time, but sometimes I need a reset to my faith, to remember in whom my faith rests.  It is important for us to remember that dreams and fantasy and faith are part of our core existence.  They are as necessary as the air we breathe, for in them lies the hope of possibility, the hope that dreams really do come true, that there is something more to this life than we can see.   In 1897, Francis P. Church, editor of the New York Sun, wrote a letter in response to an eight-year old girl who had a crisis of faith.  Here is an excerpt from my journal regarding his editorial:

Twenty-five minutes ago, I finished recounting the hardship of a long trial.  It was cathartic and beneficial.  A bowl of homemade chili, a cup of oolong tea, and two Manner cookies later (a favorite treat from Austria), I am listening to Harry Connick, Jr.’s Christmas album and enjoying the beauty, grace, and provision of an enormous tree, recently decorated by friends and family.  The world may not be right yet, but it is peaceful in this moment, and I reflect on the coming Christmas season, a season of childhood dreams, of awe, of wonder.  The candles are lit and a copy of Frances P. Church’s response to Virginia O’Hanlon is in front of me.  She needed, as we often do, a little reassurance that her faith was not unfounded:

“Virginia, your little friends are wrong.  They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age.  They do not believe except they see….man is a mere insect in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole truth and knowledge.

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.  Alas!  How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus!  It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.  There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.  We should have no enjoyment except in sense and sight.  The eternal life with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished…

“The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see…Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world…there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest men, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart.  Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond.   Is it all real?  Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding…He will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”

Mr. Church refers to skepticism and a skeptical age, something with which we can identify.  Yes, even a century ago the very things that today rob us of our sense of wonder and awe, of childlike faith, were alive and well.  I love how Mr. Church paints the glorious victory that faith brings.  He declares that not even the combined strength of the strongest of all men from all generations could tear the veil that covers the unseen world.  No, it takes faith to “push that curtain aside” to “view the supernal beauty and glory beyond.”  Yes, faith is the crux of belief.  And only when we believe can we see.  While we understand that Santa lives in the land of imagination, we can look to the original St. Nicholas and then to the One who inspired him to give generously to poor maidens who had no dowry.  He is the One who calls us to come as children, have the childlike faith and look to Him, i.e., beyond what we can see.

“Now faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

He is a big God, a mighty God.  When I think of the earth and the heavens and how He made them in six days, I am awestruck.  When I think on how He rescued His people from slavery, I am in wonder.  When I think on how He sent His Son to die for you and me, I cannot begin to fathom it…or Him.  And yes, I believe.  I believe the stories I have been told since I was a child.  They are part of me, giving me understanding of who He is to me personally and not just to my parents and grandparents.  I am thankful for my upbringing in the church, and I am thankful that He continues to delight me with more of Himself.  And yes today, even now, when I look into the night sky and gaze upon those burning orbs, billions of light years away, I am still struck with wonder.  It is the wonder that comes from knowing that the great God of the universe, who is in all the big things from the laying of the foundations of the world to now, is also all about the details of my life.  It is the wonder that He is even bigger and more awesome than the beautiful black canvas before me.

In those moments of childlike faith, I know in my heart that He put the sky and everything in it right there for me to enjoy.  Perhaps so that I would remember how big He is.  Perhaps so that I would remember that He sees me.  Perhaps so that I would know that I cannot possibly comprehend how beautiful and amazing He is.  Or perhaps just because He can.  I love that about Him.

When I first gazed upon the night sky in wonder dreaming God-sized dreams, I did not fully grasp what He had planned for me.  As I continue to gaze in wonder and enjoy holding more pieces to the puzzle, I still do not fully grasp His plan…or Him for that matter.  But this I know: I am still in awe of Him.  And once again, when in His presence, I am struck dumb; I am a child, and I believe.

Until next time...

For truly, with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26).  Amen to that!