Articles

Praising God: A Doorway to Joy

How many could praise God in the midst of such pain and filth? More appropriate responses would be anger, depression, weeping and/or plotting an escape. Prayers of praise in that setting seem out of place or even crazy.

Baffled feelings like these arose the first time I attended a prayer meeting. People were going on and on praising God. Eventually, I learned why. I learned what praise is, how to move into it, and what its benefits are.

What Praise Is:

Praise is a joyful response to any powerful, positive event in our lives. For instance, at the end of a symphony, we applaud. When our football team scores a touchdown, we cheer. As C.S. Lewis said, “All enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless it is checked by shyness.”

Bleeding in prison could hardly qualify as a positive event in the lives of Paul and Silas. And when we ourselves are in distress, only a masochist could see that as a plus. So why praise God? We do so in faith, believing what Paul said to the Romans: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.” (Rm 8:28, NRSV)

This prayer ingredient has God as its focus. It is not flattery. We are not trying to butter up the Lord to gain favors. Rather, praise is God’s Self-revelation to us. It enables us to experience God by recalling his wonderful acts and trusting that those acts will continue. It’s like vacation photos that help us experience feelings and events all over again. Praise strengthens us in the present and gives us hope for the future. God has been, is now, and will be present at every moment, even when we are suffering.

The prayer of praise expresses our feelings about what God has done for us in Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a three-step process:

We recognize God’s kindness to us as, for example, Paul did: “Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has bestowed on us in Christ every spiritual blessing in the heavens!” (Eph 1:3)
Recognition gives rise to attitudes of awe, wonder, reverence and gratitude. Who can remain unmoved while being showered with gifts?

Finally, we express our attitude in some external way. This may be vocal, such as singing or praying aloud. Or it may be through body language, e.g. clapping, raising our hands, kneeling. These expressions convey our response to God’s goodness to us. People call them by various names: praise, thanksgiving, blessing.

Implicitly or explicitly, praise also includes a desire for God’s goodness to continue in the future, as Paul and Silas may have been doing. So the prayer includes phrases such as those spoken by the blind Bartimaeus as he sought healing: “Jesus! Son of David! Have mercy on me!” (Mk 10:47). Bartimaeus could not have addressed Jesus with these words without first recognizing him as the loving, merciful, powerful Messiah.

Without being aware of it, I had been surrounded by praise prayers my whole life. Sources include:

Scripture. The Psalms overflow with thanksgiving for God’s blessings. Also, the Bible contains many titles for God that are themselves a form of praise, e.g. Light of the world, Son of God.

Liturgy. The Mass includes a number of praise prayers, such as the Sanctus (Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts) and the Gloria.

Litanies. Litanies sound like petitions, e.g. “Jesus, our refuge, have mercy on us.” Actually, each line in a litany contains an implied “you do.” “Jesus, our refuge, (you do) have mercy on us.”

Hymns. Music can touch people’s spirits when nothing else reaches them. Hymnals overflow with songs of praise. Tapes and CDs help us pray these songs while driving, cooking, exercising, etc.

Tongues. When the brain’s supply of praise prayers runs low, the prayer language called “tongues” can move us beyond the limits of our own words. The charismatic renewal has blessed us by reawakening a form of praise that lay dormant for centuries.

The Benefits of Praise

Used alone or with other worshipers, here are five benefits of praise:

1. Praise brings us into God’s presence quickly. “Enter the Temple with thanksgiving; go into its courts with praise.” (Ps 100:4) At the start of Sunday worship, people sing a hymn. At the start of a prayer time at home, I say or sing prayers of praise because they help me experience God’s presence more rapidly than any other prayers. In church and at home, praise does feel like entering God’s temple. I may start out feeling low, but within a few minutes I feel more hopeful or even joyful.
2. Praise makes us Christ-centered rather than need-centered or self-centered. We look at God, not at ourselves, and as we do, we discover God’s love and power in our lives. I find this especially helpful when I’m so engrossed in problems or pain that life itself is shrouded in gloom. At times like that, I say a litany of praise-the longer, the better. A favorite: Daniel 3:52-90, the litany sung by Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace. If they could praise God in the midst of that trial, I figure I can do likewise in the midst of mine.
3. In praise, God reveals himself to us. For the first 33 years of my life, God always seemed “out there” in a different solar system. Jesus told his disciples “I am with you always, until the end of the world” (Mt 28:20b), but I never could feel that reality. Then through praise prayers, God became real to me. I began to know him on a felt level, not just an intellectual one. I began to be able to move into deep worship when praying by myself and also with others. In both settings, praise produced a state of felt, intimate union with God. The results have transformed my life in countless healing ways.
4. Praise allows love to flow. This prayer form opens us to others because it opens us to God. It can heal relationships because it allows God into our pain. For instance, one woman despaired about her teenagers because all she could see was their surliness. Finally, she decided to praise God for them. Soon she began seeing their positive traits, even those still in the rough. Her feelings changed to ones of gratitude towards God and to a growing love for her children. Praising God changed her focus and, ultimately, her heart.
5. Praise frees us from slavery to our surroundings. For me, the best benefit of praise is its power to move me into joy, regardless of my circumstances. In bad weather or good, in sickness or health, praise frees me to be joyful and opens me to God’s blessings. It’s like what happened 2,000 years ago: Praise prayers gave Paul and Silas mental freedom before an earthquake gave them physical freedom.

The Challenge

The challenge with the prayer of praise is to pray it authentically. For instance, we who attend Catholic Mass sometimes say the Gloria with all the zest of an announcer reading a traffic report… “Glory to God in the highest…” we say with our lips, but flat tones give a hint that our hearts are not engaged. Praise prayers often begin with an outside stimulus such as playing music or saying a litany. Ultimately, however, outer words must move inward if they are to become an act of faith and a response to God’s goodness. Without the first two steps in the prayer of praise (recognizing God’s goodness, then letting an attitude of awe or gratitude arise within us), the third step — external expression — will be hollow.

A Praise Practicum

If you would like to experience the prayer of praise in the way I’ve just described, and if you would like to experience the benefits of this type of prayer, I suggest the following process:

Begin by asking God for the gift of praise. We cannot muscle our way into praise any more than we can fly under our own power because “No one can say: ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:3, NAB)

Next, you may want to focus on an external praise stimulus. At church, this could mean joining in singing the hymns. At home, it could mean putting on a CD and singing to it, or reciting a litany or reading a praise psalm aloud.

While focusing on the external stimulus, start consciously bringing to mind an act of God you are grateful for. It may be something that affects your salvation, e.g. the Son of God coming to earth. Or it may be small, e.g. recovery from a cold. God’s act may be big or little, cosmic or private.

Next, allow an emotional response to God’s act to rise up within you, e.g. gratitude, awe, love. Finally, give this response some external expression-singing, praying out loud, etc. The format is less important than the heart because praise is a prayer of the heart.

Conclusion

The prayer of praise makes a wonderful start to any time of worship, whether a Sunday liturgy or a personal prayer time. It enhances all the prayers that follow and can open us to God‘s healing power.