Enjoying God: An Invitation to Praise

As humans we are designed to praise.

If we eat an amazing meal our automatic reaction is to praise the chef! If we genuinely enjoyed something, likely no one can shut us up about it. We are inherent praisers!

However, there can be a disconnect when it comes to God. As a worship leader, I sometimes feel when a room full of people singing to God becomes lifeless and like we are just going through the motions.

Praise, is directly connected to our enjoyment.

Yes, I know there are times when we encourage ourselves to praise and be thankful in hard circumstances even though we may not “feel” it. However, in order to extract genuine praise out of our hardest moments, we need to connect to something that produces joy.

For instance, we remember a promise or receive an encouraging word from someone. This experience causes our outlook to change and become hopeful again. We no longer feel stuck in our circumstance. We “look up” and begin to see something of the goodness of God operating within what we are going through. It is then that we begin to thank and praise again because we reconnect to something that lifts us up. Praise, easily becomes our song.

The experience of knowing God gets better and better the deeper we go with Him.

C.S. Lewis states, “all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise…” (The Weight of Glory).

When our heart touches the reality of God’s goodness we cannot help but praise Him. For praise to be genuine it can never be forced, nor can it be a means to avoid something we fear like disappointment or punishment (that would be flattery or placating).