Try imagining a world without praise. Can you do it? Can you imagine not being allowed to describe your favorite meal, celebrate the super bowl, or look into your wife’s eyes and share how beautiful she is? How frustrating would that kind of world be?
Praise has to be shared. When we eat an amazing meal, we cannot wait to share it with others. When we see an excellent movie, we cannot help but talk about it. When two young people fall in love, they cannot help but shower praises upon each other because it makes their joy complete. Why? Because joy builds up until it spills over. Without the spilling over, the moment would not be complete.
Why is this important? Because God’s Word tells us to praise God. Psalm 150 says:
Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heaven! Praise him for his mighty works; praise his unequaled greatness! Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn; praise him with the lyre and harp! Praise him with the tambourine and dancing; praise him with strings and flutes! Praise him with a clash of cymbals; praise him with loud clanging cymbals. Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord! Praise the Lord!
Why does the Bible call us to praise? Because that completes our joy. We are meant to be so passionately in love with God, moved by His goodness, and overwhelmed by His beauty that we cannot help but sing and shout His praises. God cares about our joy to such a degree that He commands it to be complete by commanding us to praise Him. He wants us to find our ultimate satisfaction in Him and make that joy complete through praise.
So let your heart be filled with the goodness and beauty of God. But don’t stop there! Let that joy spill out in praise! For that is the way your joy will be complete and satisfying.
“I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. . . The world rings with praise… Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible. . . . I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?” The Psalmists, in telling everyone to praise God, are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about… I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation…the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” - C.S. Lewis
