Pause for Praise

I want to focus this morning on worshipping our King Jesus. Using the psalms are such a great guide for praise and prayer. Eugene Peterson wrote a book, Answering God, where he describes how to pray using the psalms. He talked about how the psalms give us language for prayer. When we don't know how to pray or what to pray, we can turn to one of the psalms and express our praise/thanksgiving/worries/lament to the Lord using His word. Pretty powerful.

Psalm 65 was the psalm of the day in my One Year Bible that I read this morning. Felt like I had never seen it before. Beautiful psalm. And I love it in the New Living Translation:

"What mighty praise, O God,
belongs to you in Zion.
We will fulfill our vows to you,
for you answer our prayers,
and to you all people will come.

Though our hearts are filled with sins,
you forgive them all.

What joy for those you choose to bring near,
those who live in your holy courts.
What joys await us
inside your holy Temple.

You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds,
O God our savior.
You are the hope of everyone on earth,
even those who sail on distant seas...

Those who live at the ends of the earth
stand in awe of your wonders.
From where the sun rises to where it sets,
you inspire shouts of joy." -- Ps. 65:1-5, 8

The character of God leaps from these words of praise:

He is mighty

Praise belongs to God

He answers prayers

He forgives

He gives us joy in His presence

He is faithful

He is our hope

He is awesome.

At night before going to bed I've been reading an old book titled Something More by one of my favorite authors, Catherine Marshall. I love how she shares her experiences with the Lord so candidly and gives me a hunger to know God more. In one chapter she describes the agony she went through after losing two grandchildren who died in their infancy. She wrestled with God over why this happened (who wouldn't?). In the midst of that dark valley, Catherine eventually heard the Lord tell her to surrender to Him (especially surrendering her desire to try to understand how God is working) and to praise Him. Which she did.

I've been thinking of that story for the past few days. Too often over the years I've tried to figure out God -- such as "how does the Holy Spirit work?", "what is the purpose of baptism?," or the question, "Why does He allow such jerks to do so well in this life and yet allow sweet young Christian women like Kerri Lane die?"

A counselor once told me, "Jim, you are so analytical." He was right. And I found that I never seem to get peace trying to understand God with my mind. This brings me back to the very first Scripture I memorized after becoming a believer some 28 years ago: "lean not on your own understanding" (Prov. 3:5)

What if you and I continued to surrender ourselves and our purposes to the Lord? And worshipped Him while "leaning not on our own understanding." I confess that I'm still a novice in this area. For too long I've been analyzing God and His word rather than praising Him.

I think that for today I'll live in Psalm 65:1-8 and enjoy His sweet presence and love. And let God be God.

How has the Lord used the psalms to draw you more into His awesome presence?

To the praise of His glory,

Jim