Forgive me if I harp on similar subjects over and over. The Holy Spirit's teaching tends to resemble the Celtic knot more than the Greek line— everything touches everything else, and rarely leads concisely from A to B. During Church around the dinner table on Sunday, the concept of Delight came up again. Dad was talking about how his delight over composing music drove out of his mind the Twin Evils, Worry and Fear. Excited by coinciding thoughts, I jumped in with what I've been learning about the Twin Marvels, Praise and Thanksgiving.
The Chinese wisdom is, “Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”
The trouble with this saying is its profundity: we skip right over its essence like a piece of flint off of Walden Pond. To illustrate: a rototiller, to the unenlightened, could look like a fearsome instrument of death and torture. To the knowing, it is the best way to prepare ground for easy sowing and harvesting of food. It's very useful! But we can easily see how not knowing that could make someone mightily afraid of it.
Similarly, Praise and Thanksgiving have long felt like duties to me, subconsciously falling into the negative category. No matter how much they've been touted at privileges, they remain chores to be checked off. But thanks to the patient persistence of the Deity in teaching me, they've lately begun to look like their proper selves.
The trick to Praise and Thanksgiving is to recognize that they are offensive weapons, not the post script tacked on to a desperate prayer. Again, I sight Ps. 22:3— “Yet Thou art holy, O Thou who art enthroned upon the praises of Israel.” If the Almighty takes up residence in our praises, how will anything else abide there? Likewise with Thanksgiving: if we are thanking the Lord consistently, how can complaint coexist?
Joining those two to Delight, we have a cord of three strands not easily broken. What spirit of horror known to man can stand before the desperate Praise, Thanksgiving and Delight of the saints? As shown, Fear cannot, Worry cannot, Ingratitude cannot, nor can Malice, Hate, Bad Temper, Annoyance, or Despair. And, I should imagine, that list but scratches the surface. What other vice common to Adam's children might be driven out by this holy horsewhip? Returning to the above proverb, we say light can have no truck with darkness, but how often do we make that practical? Shall we try to preemptively Praise, Thank, and Delight, and see what happens?
2 comments:
Yes...I believe we should! A few of your blogs ago, (I believe the Lord inhabiting the praises of His people one,)I was discovering this for myself just as you were writing about it. I had a horrid Sunday morning and yet I had hit a realization that very day that God is SO much larger and greater and more incredible than any horrid day. And so when it came time for worship through singing that morning, I said "Screw it. Screw everything that's bothering me. God is God. I am not. How disgusting would it be for me NOT to praise Him right now simply for who He is!" And that morning I discovered that there is indeed a ginormous strength, peace, confidence, wisdom, love, and anointing that results from praise. I have firmly come to believe in the last few weeks that this may very well become my greatest weapon against the enemy. He can not reside where the presence of the King of Glory rests. So, now I do it at home. And in my car. And at the firehouse. And in the shower. And anywhere I begin to experience the enemy trying to lie to be. I sing. I sing until I'm hoarse. And it's working. So far. So yes. Let's keep prodding and trying it!
1. Sight is not the same as cite.
2. I'm quoting this in my sermon this week :) "Övgü ve Şükretme sırrı, çareziz bir duaya eklenmiş bir hamişin olmayıp hücum silah olduklarını tanımaktır."
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