Praise
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I Felt Really Good This Day, Yes
I Felt Really Good This Day,Yes
Lord, I praise you because you're different.
and efficient.
and you've tweaked my spirit just enough so that
I can taste and see
that you truly are good
like a fresh picked pineapple
for the first time in my mouth.
Or the warmth of your sun
on the back of my
not warm neck
on a
not warm day
I'll praise your name today.
and tomorrow.
forever.
by *Bradley Hathaway*
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Draw Close to the Fire by Terry Wardle
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Psalm 100 (NIV)
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his
faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 150 (NIV)
Praise the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre,
praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe,
praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
Psalm 146:1-2
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord, my soul.
I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
All Ye Little Children
by Lisa Curry
My cherished childhood memories of Sunday School—Bible stories with felt boards, “Sword drills” and songs so simple and sweet that they remain imprinted on my soul—all took place in an old, big church building with several dark and musty upstairs rooms, unused and forgotten, which were perfect for unchaperoned kids to play hide-and-seek.
Naturally, I was struck last week when reading Corrie ten Boom’s Tramp for the Lord, in which she had written of a similar experience as a child in Holland where she, too, would play hide-and-seek with her best friend and cousin, Dot, in the huge Cathedral they had attended. She poignantly described her recollection: “Our favorite pastime was to play hide-and-seek in the big church. There were many wonderful places to hide: pews, old doors giving entrance to spiral staircases, and many closets...Although the pulpit was off-limits, what a playground that old church was! When we shouted the echo would ring and our laughter never, never seemed to be sacrilegious. Unlike some of the stern adults who sometimes frowned on our frolic, I had always thought that the laughter of little children in an empty cathedral was the most beautiful of all hymns of praise. And so we grew up, knowing only a God Who enjoyed our presence as we skipped, ran and played through this building which was built for His glory.”
Yes! I believe God’s own childlike grin was His Amen over the praise-play of these innocent, yet so-in-sync with their Father’s heart, girls, unabashedly frolicking among the upward-pointing ceilings and pillars of this aging Cathedral.
Clearly David concurs as well, for in Psalm 8 he assures us that it is through the praise of children that God has established a stronghold against the enemy. The Passion translation is even more succinct, confirming that childlike praise has the power to shut satan’s mouth AND silence the madness of those who oppose the majestic Lord Who has set His glory in the heavens and upon the childlike ones He has graciously crowned as princes and princesses over all He has made.
It requires a wee one’s eyes of wonderment and a child’s imagination to readily grasp the Reality of fairy tales and giddily bless the King Who coronates kids. I was culling books from my closet the other day (mostly the stuffy textbooks from seminary!) and discovered a tattered copy of an article I had copied. It was smudged and almost illegible but it was a treasured piece of writing I had never intended to lose.
The soul-stirring piece was on Dieter Zander, who, in 2008, went from international visionary, musician, speaker and author to a man struggling with basic communication following a stroke in 2008 which resulted in aphasia. A stroke which Zander paradoxically labeled as his stroke of grace. And it was this stroke of grace—not his years of performance where it was “all me speaking, singing, playing the piano, all solo, performing for God and working hard to earn my worth yet feeling very lonely”—that allowed Zander to hear God say “I love you, Dieter.” It was this stroke of grace which, stripping away everything but his nakedness, bestowed upon him the ears which heard God whisper, “Dieter, come and play with me.”
For Dieter, his embodiment of our Psalm 8 anointing was at Trader Joe’s. “That’s my kingdom! God has given me that kingdom to love people everyday and that’s magnificent! I used to perform but now I love and serve and play every day!” Doesn’t that sound like childlike praise, humble and happy and pure? Can’t you just see Dieter bringing a box of butter to an elderly customer, his oversized crown tilting as his heart sings praises to One Who mandates we become as children? Can’t you just see the ol’ devil’s grotesque mouth, all zipped up and mute like a handcuffed prisoner?
Like many, I went to see Jesus Revolution. Twice. During the second viewing, I recognized that the stern adults in the movie—the ones who had walked out of the church, scorning the barefoot hippies who had filled up their mostly empty pews—were the exact prune-faced grownups who had frowned upon Corrie ten Boom’s carefree, in-church romps. Unwilling to relinquish their dogma and decorum, their arms were placed in a straight-jacket of their own resentful pride, preventing them from lifting them in praise and from embracing the newborn Christians whose clothes and hair and fresh, kidlike spirits were nothing like their own.
Honestly, I have no idea where the dividing lines are between praise and other practices such as thanksgiving and worship and confession and silence and solitude. Maybe there aren’t any; the Psalms seem to consistently merge them all together. Perhaps it is we who must pull them apart like an elementary student learning basic math so that one day she can tackle Calculus, the integrated existence of living and moving and having our entire being in Him.
But of this I am certain: We must guard against the spirit of the stern adult lurking just around the corner, the one who wants to keep satan’s mouth open so his lies won’t be muffled with the duct tape of our praise-play.
I was hanging out with Jesus (to borrow from the lingo of Jesus Revolution!) the other morning and He gave me the most heartwarming image. I was a little girl again, plopped in His lap and quite thrilled to be there. And without any malice or meanspiritedness, I was making faces and sticking my tongue out at all the kids who were playing in front of us. After all, it was my turn to have His undivided attention! And Jesus was laughing,enjoying the sport of it all.
In an instant the vision was over, but I laughed out loud and praised this incredible God Who never wants us to surrender our childlike souls—even as we reign as royal priests in the little kingdoms, like Trader Joe’s, in which He places us within His everlasting Kingdom. Jesus Himself praised the Father for hiding His truth from the wise and revealing it to children. So I’ll keep returning and returning to the girl I was in Sunday School, wholeheartedly and loudly singing the sweet, simple chorus: Praise Him! Praise Him, all ye little children! God is love! God is love! Praise Him! Praise Him, all ye little children! God is love! God is love! And in my imagination, I hear Corrie and Dot and Dieter and David—and Jesus—joining in the praise and singing along, too.
Bless the Lord, O my soul Who shows His Face To the childlike And not to the smartypants. Who clamps the mouth of the nasty ol’ devil With the heartfelt praises of His humble kids.
Who establishes His forever Kingdom
With a little child Leading the lion and lamb.